


Death's Seen a Double Bed

by vinylnerd (patty_cakesboi)



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Arma Angelus - Freeform, M/M, Multi, also that might not happen considering half of the band is fucking dead in this fic, and it's underage for joe and pete basically, andtrick - Freeform, anyways. have fun crying, i sure did, joetrick - Freeform, suicide basically, vandays fob or pre tttyg if we're talking about that, wentzman - Freeform, ye good ol otp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 19:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10315469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patty_cakesboi/pseuds/vinylnerd
Summary: The chain. The bloody chain that took Andy, then Patrick, and now it decided to stop by for Joe.It was addictive. Falling in love with the heart of gold of chained boys was addictive, but painful in the end.It was enjoyable. Seeing little sparks in the eyes of your loved ones, before they got strongly hooked on the chain and went with the current of the what seemed as a pleasing death.And it was infectious. When the chain dragged the prisoner far enough, it caught someone else. It acted like the Hydra. You cut its head, two grew back. It could be fought, but no Hercules was there to stop it.Joe seemed to get caught too. But he was willing to fight it and break it.





	1. [0] Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this might have a lot of typos and shit + it's unedited but i'm gonna post a second version of it (also completed) here sometime  
> anyways. enjoy this fic written at 3 am while crying over the (after) life of the party

The stars lit up the sky as time passed, showing new ways for riffed boys. Hope could always be reborn again. Long gone partner, though... nowhere to be found.

Joseph Mark Trohman was locked up in the chains of oblivion. "Never ending up like him"... bullshit. The one before him took the same path and, eventually, Joe became even worse than who seemed to be his true and deepest love.

He swore to himself to never open his heart in front of someone like he did last time. But his attempts were always in vain, falling in love every single time.

Love was a forbidden thing. At least that's what he wanted now. As addictive and pleasant, it was an object that must've been kept in the past.

But deep inside, he knew that it couldn't last. He was his last, defining scar that tore him apart, breaking him into little pieces. And the vague feeling that he was following the chain already was poking him at every step.

His only hope was that at least he'll end the chain for good.


	2. [1] Lily-of-the-Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sad shit. here we go folks

Lily-of-the-valleys were pretty hard to find. They were his favourite flowers, always going out into the nature to smell and be around them.

But the graveyard of Wilmette was in one of the ugliest places of this damned city, so far from the nature that it made Patrick sick; I could see it on his face, every weekend that we brung our friend candles and prayed next to his tomb. Since he joined the party, I tried to bring his flowers to his grave every weekend too.

I could see the chains there. Letting go of its tight grip over this boy's life. Letting him be happy wherever he was sent to.

I kneeled in front of the grave and read the already wore off paint used to write his name. Soon, any memory of him would be gone. The stone would be still there, just that it will be lost in the crowd of the other worn-out souls. The priests will try to get the unknown skeleton out of his coffin, probably because the family didn't pay in time for the grave tax. They'll take him as well as they took his twin a few months ago.

"Patrick Martin Stumph. Born April 27, 1984. Deceased February 6, 2002."

I leaned over the tombstone and kissed the space right between his name and the cursed date. He didn't even get to become an adult. I remember his eyes, always filled with hope that things will get better and work out, that he'll go to college, that he'll have a family. All gone.

Cross legged on the old pavement, I pressed my hands together and let my head fall on the tips of my fingers. "Your memory is in my keepsake, with which we'll never part. God has you in his keeping, I have you in my heart." I prayed quietly.

Patrick wouldn't have appreciated it. He didn't believe in God anymore, and, to be honest, I started losing my faith too. Always telling me that if God really loved us, he wouldn't have made us go through all this mess. The Joe Trohman I knew would have hesitated to lie to him about believing in his atheist theories. But he wasn't wrong, after all. And that made me look like a traitor to my close ones. The jewish family I grew up in didn't really tolerate disbelief, but somehow they were okay with me saying Catholic prayers all the time. Of course it wasn't going to help with anything, but if there was still a shred of belief left in me, I would've prefered to use it to help Patrick.

The phone in my pocket ringed loudly, snapping me out of my daze. I swore under my breath (great way to end a prayer) and got it out of my jacket. It was already 10 am. I stood up and brushed the dust off my legs.

I looked back one more time at the tomb, then hopped on my bicycle and pedaled away from the graveyard. Adam always got mad when someone was late for band practice. I could already imagine his sullen face and his hands reaching out to rip his hair out of his head. Kid got some anger issues.

I'm still wondering why Pete recruited him in the first place. Adam Bishop was always causing trouble and conflicts between us, but apparently Pete wanted to hold on to him. How many times have Chris and I told him to get Patrick to replace Adam in the band? Probably too many. Even if Pete didn't see him as talented, it would've given Patrick a reason to continue, to hang on. Now it was too late.

And I hated him for that.

Dropping my bike on the porch, I looked at the same old "recording studio" that Pete rented, also known as his grandma's garage. When you looked at us, a small band of teenagers who tried to look hardcore playing in an old lady's garage... well, we kinda looked ridiculous.

"Where the fuck were you, Trohman?" I heard Adam shout already, as if he caught my scent. I sighed and shook my shoulders.

"None of your business, you moron."

Adam rolled his eyes back and huffed. Good. He wasn't in such a bad mood today. I got away easily.

He followed me into the garage, where Pete was unsuccessfully trying to play the drums. He had no coordination whatsoever, so it was a waste of time to even think about making him also the drummer. Chris was tuning his bass and adjusting his new Fender amp, which he seemed to be so proud of. Saving up for new stuff was pretty hard for him from what he had told me a few times.

"You still sure we don't need to call Timothy, Pete?" I asked him looking at how he just dropped a stick. He laughed nervously and gave me a cold look.

"We don't need Timothy, Joe. And also," Pete smirked, throwing one stick in the air and catching it between his index and middle finger. "I think I'm getting the hang of this."

"If you say so," I said with a small voice, earning a snicker from Chris and a two middle fingers from Pete.

I sat down and took a can of Surge soda and pulled the opener. Adam grimaced when he read the brand off my drink almost and threw at me a bottle of Mountain Dew.

"Grow the fuck up and drink some real stuff, Joey," he sarcasticallly pet-called me, knowing how much I hated being called Joey. I threw the bottle away, took a sip from my can and then I just stuck my tongue out at him, making Chris laugh again like the goofball he was.

"Nice tongue, dude." Chris stated. "Can I be on the B-Side of it?"

"No, you gay fuck."

***

With every weekend spent practicing with Arma Angelus, I felt that I was slowly losing interest in that band. And I knew that the others felt quite the same, since we kinda lost the passion in our singing.

God, I wish Patrick would've been here to joke about how focusless I was. Maybe if he would've been playing with us in Arma Angelus I wouldn't feel like breaking down and suggesting to disband everyday.

It was past 5 pm now and I had nothing to do. Riding my bike silently through Indiana Hill and heading back to Wilmette didn't seem to be enough, and I didn't have any other friends than Chris. My family was getting ready for Sam's bar mitzvah and since it was almost the end of springbreak, they managed to take him back to Ohio for this week. So that means I was completely alone.

Home wasn't an option. Nothing to do there either. But I stopped by and grabbed one of the graphic novels my dad got me and Sam for Hanukkah last year, something called Box Office Poison. He said that if I ever needed to laugh a little, I could read this thing and feel better. The thing was: I already read this thing for like 27 times. Never worked, even though the jokes were quite good. But it was still worth one more time (or fifty more times).

I continued to roam the streets, looking for a place to go to, until I found myself in front of a little house. And of course it was my Tree Boy's house. The simple wooden home with the little porch and the old door being ajar as always. Patrick considered that there was nothing to steal from that house, so it didn't matter if he left the door open or not. Plus that he usually forgot his keys.

Stepping in, I breathed in the stale air and let it all out with a big sigh.

"Mister Stumph?" I asked, not actually expecting for an answer. After his son's funeral, no one saw him again around this place.

I climbed the staircase and opened the white door to Patrick's bedroom. The windows were opened and apart from the lack of clothes in the closet, the room looked exactly the same as it did one month ago. No one bothered taking his things out. And I was grateful for that.

I took my sneakers out along with my socks and lay down on Patrick's bed. Glancing at the starlit ceiling, I opened my bag and got the comic book and my pack of cigarettes.

I lit a cigarette and stuck it in my mouth, coughing after I breathed in the stifling smoke. Bad habbit, I know, but it was better than regular morphine shots or sleeping pills. At least I still had a choice whether or not I could let myself be caged in the abyss of drugs. Smoking was a much better alternative.

Slowly getting the smog out and staring at the ceiling became one of my daily routines. It was the fastest way I could fall asleep and not think about the chain anymore.

And as I expected, I drifted asleep shortly after.


	3. [2] You Must Be a Weasley

I remember trying to choose which book I should take with me at school that day. First and third periods would be most likely free, and since I couldn't plan anything for those hours in time, it would've been nice if I read something. Mom would be so proud if I actually read something that's not a graphic novel or Tolkien.

My mom would also be extremely proud if I stopped re-reading the Lord of The Rings, but that's not really negotiable.

There were a few unread books on the shelf, still in their protective plastic sleeve, but I couldn't get my butt to read them. I had all the four Harry Potter books and a few other series that I never bothered to look at the title.

"Joseph!" my mom shouted from downstairs. "Come on, honey, Sam's already in the car!"

"You can go! I'll take my board."

"At least come and eat something!"

Without looking, I quickly grabbed a book and threw it in my backpack. I picked up my cap and the bat hoodie from my chair and slammed the door shut.

"Do we still have that pizza, mom?" I asked her, searching the fridge for something else than apples and Sam's infinite stash of Cheerios.

"It's been two days already, Joe, you can't eat that-"

"Found it!"

I took a bite out of the cold pizza from movie night last Sunday. It was horribly disgusting, but I was sick of extremely sweet cereals every morning.

My mom sighed when she saw me fake a satisfied grin. She came to me and gave me a peck on my cheek, almost kicking me out of the house with the concerned look in her eyes. Mom hated it when we didn't eat properly for breakfast.

A few moments later I found myself in front of the highschool. Looking around the campus, I saw the usual 'gang' that hung day by day at Glenbrook South and asked myself why did I ever think that moving here from New Trier last year would be a good idea. At Glenbrook you could see two groups gathered. The weird guys that thought they were cool and the nerds. Actually three groups, including the normal people, which weren't as many as I wished they would be when I transferred here during sophomore year.

I never had something against nerds, it was just... I don't really know. The group here was really weirding me out. And the weird guys were just the cliche replicas that you could find in every highschool. No exception. I just casually avoided them and got to my class.

As I expected, the teacher we were supposed to have our lesson with didn't want to come yet. I was just waiting for fifteen minutes to pass so I could go in the field and read whatever book I threw in my backpack.

People around me looked as bored as I was. I never took interest in actually seeing who was in this class since school started, and it was already October. God, I needed to turn on my social switch soon or I'll be one of those unimportant faces in the yearbook again.

I turned around and tried to talk to someone.

"Hey, uh, guess what day it is." I said to a girl that sat behind me. She raised her head and looked at me like I was a creep. Probably because I was smiling like one.

"It's octomber third, two-thousand and... zero!"

The girl just rolled her eyes and started talking to another girl next to her. Failed attempt. Next one, then.

There was a new guy. I didn't even notice that he was sitting just next to me. I looked around, making sure no one thought I was checking him out. Half of Glenbrook already knew me as the sad (which I was not, thank you so much), not-sure-if-he-has-a-sidebitch-or-not gay guy.

He had shoulder-lenght dark red hair and icy blue eyes, partially covered by a pair of thin round glasses. The guy looked like a punk rock mama's boy. And he had a book on his desk. I bent over mine and tried to see the title, ending up with a slight smirk. Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban.

With a second thought, the guy looked like a strange combination between Ron and Harry. What a coincidence to have the book with him.

That meant that I had the best line to start a conversation. I leaned over to him and cleared my throat.

"Potter," I said with a false superior tone. The guy turned around and looked at me confusedly.

"No, wait. Red hair? And a hand-me-down robe? You must be a Weasley."

With that, the boy laughed so much he attracted a few cold glares upon us.

"And you are..." he said with a lower voice, trying to mimic sarcasm.

"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

"I'm pretty sure you're mixing Bond with Harry Potter there," he chortled, making me also laugh. He stretched his hand to me. "Andy Hurley."

"Joe Trohman," I introduced myself, highfiving him.

"Hey, Hurley! Be careful around this guy, he might start jerking you off in any moment," I heard someone say behind us, before the whole class burst out laughing.

Andy's smile disappeared, a blush covering his face completely. They screwed it up. I felt the cold shivers of humiliation run down my spine. All I wanted was to make friends with him. But I guess gay guys aren't allowed to have some platonic relationships.

We both remained silent until the clock hit the fifteen minute pass. People gathered their things and left and before I could see where Andy was going, I found myself alone in the classroom.

***

During second period, our English teacher told us that Mr. Treck wasn't going to come either, so we had third period free.

"You have some money, do you?" my dad asked me on the phone. I forgot to take some food with me again, so mom was now acting like a nutjob.

"Yeah, dad, I have like 10 dollars from yesterday."

"Remember that you have to pick Sam up after that! He has his skate and everything with him."

"Yeah, dad. I got it." I muttered ending the call. I got my board from the front door and went outside. I had to get my lunch now or I would have to eat that poor cafeteria food.

Heading to the store near our highschool and glancing at the leaves above me, I wasn't really aware of where I was going. Man, I wish I was just at home now. I was racing through the campus, passing through it without caring. I hated to say that it was similar to the way I raced through life.

I bought a chicken sandwhich from the store and looked for a place to sit down. Might as well do something outside rather than getting ready to be a vegetable indoors.

Right when I was ready to drop the idea, I spotted a short boy wearing a beanie and a lot of facial hair and a guy who's face was covered by his hair. Without saying anything, I went there and sat next to them. They didn't comment. Just carried on, talking actually pretty intensively.

"Hey, guys!" I said with a soft, almost scared voice. Come on, Joe, get your shit together.

"Joe?" the face-covered-by-hair-with-a-familiar-voice boy said. He put a hand in his hair, pulling it away. I should've recognized him by the book laying wide open on his thighs.

"Oh, uh, hey Andy!... and guy that I haven't met yet."

The beanie guy chuckled and awkwardly made finger guns in my direction. I just shook my head confusedly.

"Oh, come on! You must know me!" he exclaimed with a big smile on his face.

"I don't think we've ever met before."

He frowned, still having a playful little smile. Well this guy really looked like fun.

"You're Joe Trohman! Best skater! The gayest kid in this extremely straight highschool!"

I felt my cheeks burning up. How many people actually knew? It was getting pretty humiliating.

"You can call me Stump." he raved with a little smuggy smile.

"Oh, because you're short?"

He stopped being so cheery and looked at me dead in the eye.

"No, that's my name. Patrick Martin Stumph, I just got rid of the 'h'."

"He's my bestfriend!" Andy exclaimed, earning a confused look from Patrick. The changed a few upset looks, before turning around and raising their books up.

"Let's read, wa' do y'think?" Patrick said with a weird, fake smile. I didn't comment anything, though I had a feeling that they hid something I was not supposed to know. It was obvious. They just met me.

Well, I guess that's what goes for Andy.


	4. [3] The Ghost of You

One thing people over-stereotipicalize is how depression manifests. It's not all about cutting yourself and wearing black or being emo (which is definitely not the real meaning of it). Sometimes is self-destruction, other times is just... hidden. Under a fake smile that doesn't look fake. Under the over enjoyment of yourself and desperate trying to have someone to talk to. Under countless sleeping pills taken in the hopes that you'll finally drift into a calming stage of comfort again.

And when you don't even expect it to hit, the demons are being released of their leash.

Pete was one of those insensitive bitches that believed in that stereotype. He just lived his life like he was the king of the world, God himself (if he even existed). Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third was, for sure, a twat.

I was forced awake in the middle of the night when I heard the sound of glass breaking in my dream. My nightmare, actually. The best dream I've had lately was that I'll join my friends on the other side. Maybe even take the chains to my grave.

My pillow was wet again. Whoever decided to break a vessel was coming closer to my room, so I threw it on the floor. Didn't want anyone to see that I had been crying earlier for like two hours straight.

But I didn't realize that the person that broke in was already in my room. I turned on the lights and covered my eyes for a moment, feeling like they were going to burn from the sudden luminosity change.

"Holy shit, what happened to you, dude?" a guy asked. He had a familiar voice, though I couldn't associate it to anyone close to me at that very moment. "Have you been crying?"

I removed my hand from my eyes and finally saw who was the man that broke into my home.

Pete was blinking rapidly, pointing at the visibly wet pillow on the floor. I gave him a short look, not having any idea if I should explain that to him or if it was completely worthless. I ran a hand across my eyes and took a long breath, shifting through the sheets.

"What are you doing here, Peter?" I asked him tiredly, almost too harsh.

"Peter? Wow, man, when did we get so official-"

"Pete, what are you doing here?" I asked again, this time without holding back my slight increase of anger.

"I was bored. And I knew that you weren't yourself lately so I thought I could get you drunk and make you feel better."

I felt the corners of my lips involuntarily turning up. So he still did care.

He closed the window behind him and pulled out an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels and two plastic glasses out of his backpack.

"Oh my god, so you're going on the strong ones."

"Strong ones for strong men, Joe."

A few glasses later, I knew that tomorrow I'll be a zombie. But I felt really good. At least for a moment in the last months, I felt right.

Pete was just ranting about popular bands in Chicago and was clearly jealous. He told me about everything that happened at home, with his mom and his plan of moving somewhere else, to build his own "cave". We were talking again, like two close friends. We were acting exactly the same as we did before everything happened.

But then the bomb was planted.

"Joe, care to explain to me why were you crying? Please don't tell me that you're crying over your boyfriend." he said with a little grin taped to his face.

Fuck it. Fuck every single thing I said earlier. He didn't care. He didn't give a fuck. Pete Wentz only wanted to make sure that I could still continue his fucking band. That I was still fucking sane enough to keep the group stable and prevent the disband.

I looked at him dead in the eye, waiting for Pete to drop that smile.

"You serious, dude?" Pete said after a few moments. "You're crying over that emo lil' shit? Why? He's gone, mate, you can't do anything about tha-"

My palm slammed on his cheek. Pete's eyes widened so much that it looked like his dirtish brown things will pop out.

"Get the fuck out."

"What? You're really serious? Why are you-"

"I SAID GET OUT!" I yelled, throwing the glass and his backpack on the window. "Why are you here? To make me feel bad that I loved someone and that I'm sad that they died? I feel bad enough already, Pete. Just fucking leave."

"But-"

"GET OUT!"

Pete's jaw dropped, and he let his arms fall on his body. With a swift move, he spit in his hand and run it across my wall. Then he jumped out the window and ran to his bike, pedaling away.

I fell back on my bed and burried my head in the pillow, liberating a queued scream in it.

Hot tears appeared on my face again as I repeatedly hit the wall with my fists. I punched it, many times. Harder and harder, until I felt like my whole body went numb.

I shouldn't have done it. Maybe he had good intentions. Maybe he really wanted to cheer me up. Maybe he was trying to be my friend again, after he let me push him away.

What the fuck happened to me? What happened to the cheery, always prideful Joe? It has been replaced by this monstruosity. I was going crazy.

I was completely out of control.

My hands dropped to my sides and I fell on the bed again, not being able to inhale anything.

"Joseph."

I turned my head around, expecting to see my parents. I was seeing the worst already. Psychiatrists. Anti-depressants. Pity I did not need.

But it wasn't them. It wasn't actually anyone.

It was him.

It was Patrick.


	5. [4] How About a Ride, Son

Never thought I would ever say this, but that son of a bitch was right. Timothy finally convinced me to listen to Jimmy Eat World, one of his and my dad's favorite bands. And damn, they were good.

Actually, he didn't convince me, even though he annoyed me everyday about it. I was just bored of my own records and decided to steal a random one from dad's collection, which happened to be Clarity.

The first single released on the album was slowly growing on me. It was conflicting, but I promised to myself that I'll never tell Tim nor my dad that I liked their music. I would get so much shit for it that it would probably get on the level of throwing the vinyl out on the window.

One thing people seemed to over-stereotypicalize about me was my music taste. Everyone thought I only listened to poppish bands, just because I never listened to music in public. People figured I did that because I was trying to be cool (or because I was gay). In reality, I was just more into harder bands like Anthrax, Megadeth or Slayer. I even got the obsession for Metallica from Pete. Thrash was my defining genre.

But I never thought punk was this good. I was lost in it. Too lost for my standards. The cringe alarm was on and buzzing in my head. I gotta learn when to turn it off.

Right when I wasn't expecting anyone to disturb me, I heard the click of the doorknob over the music and someone turning on the light in my room.

"So you like being in the dark, huh? When it's just you and the music, alone. The feeling that only the songs know what you did in the dark."

I turned around, a short guy standing in the middle of the room. The single light installed on the ceiling was exposing only half of his face, clean and soft like a new born child.

"What are you looking at?" he asked when we both realised that I was staring at him.

"Patrick?"

It was the only thing that crossed through my mind. He looked so different, like he just aged backwards. His weird facial hair was almost gone, only leaving two little chunks of hair on the sides.

"You like it?" Patrick chuckled, pointing at his hair. "Gotta trim it down to mutton chops sometimes, right?"

The record reached the end when he smiled at me, then everything turned to a really awkward silence. I should've asked him how he managed to find my home or how he tricked my mom to let him in my room. But I just stood there, waiting for him to say anything.

"Nice turntable you have there." he stated. "Pro-Ject Debut?"

"Uh, yeah."

"What were you listening to?"

For a moment I found myself debating whether I should lie about it or tell the truth that I just disappointed myself by listening to punk music. But before I could answer, Patrick saw the record for himself.

"Hah, Andy likes this band too. Oh, and, I came by to ask you if you wanted to- uh- join us?"

"Join you where?"

"A ride. Through the suburbs. You going or spending Friday night alone, in your room, without friends, bein-"

"Okay! Okay! Damn, man, I get it."

Patrick blew air from his nose and smiled again. It was better to join rather than hating myself for breaking my own rule.

I went downstairs with him and put my jacket on, taking the board next to the front door. Patrick suddenly grabbed my arm and looked at me with confused eyes.

"Aren't you taking your bike?" he asked, looking straight into my eyes. It made me feel really uncomfortable, but I chose to shut up about it.

"My bike?"

"Yeah, Joe, how do you think you're going to resist on that little thing?"

I rolled my eyes and pulled a stool from under the hanger, climbed on it and got the keys from the garage. The dusty air filled my lungs and I coughed a few times. Patrick coughed behind me and grabbed my back tightly, leaning with all his weight on me. Difficultly, I flicked on the switch and lit up the garage, seeing dad's car and my old bike. I haven't ridden that thing since I was thirteen. And I've grown a lot during those years.

That bike was ugly as hell. What in the world was I thinking when I asked my parents to by this? My face instantly screwed up at the sight of those horrid stickers. "Can I please take my board?"

"Oh, come on, Joe, no one's gonna laugh at it. It's a pretty nice bike!"

"Pretty nice? Pretty nice?" I hissed at him with an almost outraged voice. Patrick just laughed at my reaction. He didn't understand - it was truly horrifing. "No girl likes a guy who can't get it up? Where did I even find this? I was fucking twelve!"

Patrick ran his hand across the sticker glued thightly on the side of my bike. He grabbed the edge of it and tried to pull the sticker off a few times, but it was like Satan used the most durable glue ever. Maybe it was welded to the bike. He shrugged, pushing his lower lip forward and coming to pat my back.

"If it makes you feel better: all twelve year olds are fucking stupid. And impossibly hetero. I can't believe what a pathetic straight I was back then."

The word 'was' kept hitting me in the face like trains many times, but once again, I chose to shut up.

I opened the garage door and sighed, dragging the bike out. Andy was sitting right there on the porch, a grey bike thrown next to an old, dark orange one.

"Hey, Joey!" he greeted me with a little smile.

"Don't call me that."

"So where are we going?"

Patrick knit his brows and put one hand under his chin like he was thinking about the meaning of life.

"What about passing through Willmette and then going to Glenview? We could hang out at my place?

"Can't we just go straight there?" I asked, wishing that he would say yes. Pete lived in Wilmette. I didn't want him to see me on this thing.

I told them that if they wanted to go through Wilmette, they'd have to find another vehicle for me.

Andy threw a mischievious look to Patrick, who smirked and pointed the front yard of a house on the other side of the road. Patrick quickly ran to it, hiding under the frame of the front window. With a quick scan, Patrick turned around and finger-gunned Andy. He rushed to the fence, struggling a bit before pulling a red cart on the road.

"Hop in!" he said, before leaning again over the fence and threw two ropes next to the cart.

"What?"

"We're gonna guide you! We tie these ropes to our saddles and to the cart. Simple as that!"

"Guys, we can't do that. There are still cars out on the road!"

"Oh, stop being such a buzz kill!" Andy patted me on the back. "We're good riders. What are you, like, 160 pounds?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Then come on! Have some fun, for fuck's sake!"

If anyone took a picture of me in that very moment, I would probably look so done with life that life would be done with me. But he was pretty right. I climbed into the cart and put my chin on my knees. Patrick and Andy started pedaling and soon I found myself holding on thigtly on the borders of the wooden cart.

"Let it go, Joe!" Patrick shouted at me from the front. "It's not like you're gonna hurt yourself!"

As the cart gained speed, I slowly took my hands away and screamed at the top of my lungs, feeling the wind run through my hair.

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, Joe!"

Andy took a turn and Patrick followed him, pulling the cart swiftly on the main Wilmette road. I stopped screaming when I saw the familiar black and white hoodie and the white ripped shirt on two guys in front of us. They were riding their boards and laughing when they turned their heads around and saw me.

"Joe? What the fuck are you doing?" Pete asked me, with a serious face but an amused look. The other guy, which I recognised as being one of Pete's bandmates, TJ, turned around and faced me with his bicolored eyes. Everytime our eyes met I felt really weird, like he was trying to decide which personality he should use- the blue or brown one? 

I locked my eyes on Pete's and raised one eyebrow before carelessly shouting at Andy and Patrick.

"Faster, boys!"

"Where we goin'?" Patrick asked me laughing.

"To infinity and beyond!"

"I am proud of you, cowboy!" Andy yelled both at me and Pete before going our way and leaving behind the two confused guys.


	6. [5] Kiss Me, I'm Straight-Edge

"I see that you've been inspired by our lord and saviour, Buzz Lightyear!" Andy smirked at me, sitting crosslegged on Patrick's couch. His room was a complete mess, full of all sorts of posters, records and instruments. He even had a fucking trumpet, goddamnit!

"Yeah. I kinda prefer cartoons over normal movies lately. My brother, Sam, is obsessed with Toy Story," I said, laying on the couch and staring at the big David Bowie poster on Patrick's wall.

"Nice," Patrick sighed, getting up and walking to his record player. "Heard about Elvis?"

"Of course I heard about Elvis Presley, what kind of question is that?"

"Not Presley, idiot. Costello. Declan Patrick MacManus. Dad named me after him."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Let's hear it."

Patrick reached out to the upper shelf full of records and got one out, entitled 'Blood and Chocolate'. He carefully pulled the solid white disc, placed it on the player, pushed the start button and we watched the arm of the turntable slowly move and land on the edge of the vinyl.

The song started off with a crisp sound, diving right into a little riff and loud vocals. I didn't really want to say this to Patrick, but the first song was pretty boring. Andy was quiet, staring at how Patrick was humming the melody and following the beat with his hands on his thighs.

"So... How did you two meet?" I asked Andy, trying to kill the awkward silence that settled upon us.

"Well, me and Patrick play drums and we both tried to get a spot in a band a while ago as drummers, but none of us pleased them."

"We basically became friends by complaining," Patrick stated, bumping Andy in the shoulder. He lost his smile right after Patrick said "friends".

"Dude... We're more than just friends."

I looked at both of them, the color in Patrick's cheeks quickly fading out.

"We're bros!" he continued, patting his friend on the back.

Patrick was uncomfortable; it could be seen from miles away. "Uh, yeah- bros, uh- Joe? Do you play any instruments?"

"Actually yeah! I play bass and guitar."

"I have a guitar in the attic, I'll get it now," Patrick said, already opening the door. I looked at Andy, who seemed to be as weirded out as I was.

Patrick immediately came back running with that jet black guitar, old and probably way out of tune. "Come on, I need someone to play this song with!"

He handed me the guitar and showed me the chords in a flash, which weren't as easy as I thought they would be. To be truly honest, I haven't played the guitar nor the bass in ages. Andy sat at the drums and Patrick took his guitar from the corner of the room.

"Why me?"

"I need a second guitarist. And I've been trying to get this tune out of my head for days. It's driving me crazy."

He began humming a rhythm, showing Andy the drum riffs. Andy showed him that he knew it already, and I was sure that Patrick bugged him about it since he came up with the song.

"I'm good to go..." Patrick said with a little voice before getting the guitar pick he held with his mouth in his hand.

He struck the chords, probably forgetting that his amp was at max volume and unintentionally almost getting us deaf.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Patrick, turn that thing down!" I swore at him, trying to cover my ears from horrible white noise.

"Sorry about that," he said turning the amp off and flicking the switch back on. "Okay, Joe, watch this: the first part is fret four on E, then frets 6 on A and D and-"

"Patrick, I haven't played this thing in fucking ages. I can't even understand what you're saying," I told him, playing with the neck of the guitar more like uninterested than not knowing what the fuck were those chords.

"I can't find someone who knows stuff about music anywhere!" he huffed, putting his fingers on the said frets and jamming out. I wasn't gonna lie, the song sounded nice. I rolled my eyes, hiding my interest and repeated what he did. Patrick nodded and started the rhythm on his guitar.

"Okay, three, two, one... I'm good to go, and I'm going nowhere fast-"

"Stop, stop. It's horrible."

"Oh, it doesn't sound that bad, Joe!" Andy excused Patrick for his mediocre singing.

"It's not the instrumentation, it's the way you're using your voice. Don't sing it here," I told him pointing at my nipples, then moving my hands right under my ribs. "Sing it here, in the stomach. Your voice won't crack if you do so."

Patrick raised his eyebrows and pouted before putting a hand on his stomach and breathing in.

"Like this?"

"Yeah. Try now."

It was way better now, sounding like he wasn't suffocating anymore. The guitar riffs were pretty awesome for someone who seemed to be so out of tune, but I wasn't complaining. Pete was a horrible singer, but he wrote some really good bass lines when he tried.

"What's this called?"

"Saturday," Andy answered dropping the sticks on the drum. "Now, how about some real music? Rammstein?"

"That's my boy!" I said patting Andy on the back. Patrick was just staring at us in disagreement.

"Bowie?" he asked with a hopeful tone.

"Nein."

***

I woke up on the floor, surrounded by popcorn and with a stain on my t-shirt that looked like beer. Someone tell me that I didn't get drunk. My back felt like breaking into pieces when I stood up.

Nobody was in the room and it was still dark outside. The clock on the upper shelf was shining three red numbers: 3.44 am.

Shit.

I grabbed my phone from the couch and looked through the never ending list of texts from my mom, dad and even Sam.

"Sweetie, where are you? Are you okay?"

"Dude, where are you? Mom's freaking out!"

"What do you want for breakfast?"

I sighed and pasted the message I saved from my old conversations to their texts: "Sausage. I'll be there in the morning."

'Bacon' and 'sausage' was our code for 'come to get me' and 'I'm fine'. Dad thought it would be useful, but it just sounds really weird. Last time someone read my text without my consent, they thought sausage was a code for dick and bacon was the vagina. I've never talked to them again since then, probably because they thought my dad was asking what I fucked again and I would still answer like "still gay, dad".

I put one hand on my mouth and breathed out, checking for any trace of alcohol. I didn't drink. But there were two empty bottles of Carling next to the turntable.

Did Patrick drink that much? Andy was straight-edge; at least that's what I thought when he took off his stained shirt and put on one with the words "kiss me I'm straight-edge".

I opened the room's door and stepped out. If Andy went home then where was Patrick? It was his house anyway.

I was preparing to call him when I saw a dim light at the end of the hall. Whispers and silent sobbing could be heard from there. Walking closer to the light, I noticed that it was coming from the bathroom and the voices were audible now.

"I saw him, I saw him again, Patrick, I saw him again!" I heard someone say quickly with short breaths in between. "He was sitting beside Joe, he was angry and- and- he was looking straight at me with full black eyes and- and-"

"It's okay, Andy, it's okay." Patrick soothed him. "You're with me."

"No, it's not okay! I'm losing my mind! I'm seeing the fucking ghosts! Of my dad!"

"Andy, it was just a nightmare."

"That's the thing, Patrick! It wasn't a dream! The walls, all the records, everything was the same! No fingers, legs, hands, anything missing! It was real."

Patrick sighed. "You gotta tell your mom. You know she has the same problem."

"I can't go back to The Falls! I moved to Chicago for a reason!"

I stepped even closer to the door, finally being able to see what was going on inside through the keyhole. Andy was sitting on the toilet with his elbows on his knees, face hidden between his palms.

"W-when are we going to tell him?" he stuttered. His eyes were red and dry, two dark rings surrounding them.

"Andy, we barely know him."

"It's not like he's homophobic, you know. He's gay."

"We don't know that."

"Why would you fake being gay just to get attention? More like hate, actually."

Patrick sat next to Andy on the edge of the bathtub and sighed again. "We'll see." And then he leaned to Andy and grabbed his shirt. I couldn't see what was happening exactly, but it was obvious.

I ran back to the room, lay down where I was sitting initially and waited for them. But they didn't come. They must've heard me, because the next morning they didn't even say hello.

Neither did they on Monday.

Or Tuesday.

They were acting like nothing happened, but we all knew that they weren't just best friends. We just couldn't work a way around it and act normally.


	7. [6] A Throw of the Invisible Punch

Blood was dripping on the carpet from my clenched fists as I staring at the pale body standing in the middle of the room. A tear streamed down my face and I hastly swiped it away. I never cried in front of him. I wasn't going to do it now; whether he was real or just a twisted figment my mind decided to create in one of my worst moments.

"Go away until I smash this guitar on your head."

"Don't destroy it on me. A Strat like that doesn't deserve such a cruel fate." he responded with the most Patrick voice ever.

Aside from the paler, faded skin and the loss of details below his face, he pretty much looked the same.

"It's happening to me now, right?"

"You know Andy never left."

"I promised myself I would never end up like you. And here I am!"

"Since when was that a bad thing?"

"A bad thing? So seeing your fucking ghost is something good? Because I don't feel very good!"

"Joe." Patrick said with a softer voice, leaning over to touch my shoulder. His hand fell right through it.

"Please, Patrick. I beg you. Just leave."

"It's not my choice, Joe. Your mind is the one that called me. I had to come."

I sighed and covered my face. "So you're not real."

"Not if you don't believe it."

Patrick sat next to me on the bed and looked at my hands. "Aren't you going to put something on that?"

"What's the point? I'm already turning into a nutjob."

"You're not; I was. Don't let grief consume you. Come on, I'm getting the bandages."

He left the room and went to the bathroom. But the door was closed, he couldn't enter. "Mind if you open it?" He went in and lifted the first aid kit from the corner of the room. Whoever would've entered the bathroom now would've seen just a big red box floating. And an idiot speaking to it.

Marvellous.

"Guess you kinda believe in me," he said with a smirk. Patrick took the bandages and the alcohol in his hands, pouring a little on my fingers and unfolded the roll. "If you believe a little more, we could take back the time we lost."

"You don't have a wang."

"Not that, dumbass. Believe me, Andy wasn't good at it."

"Please don't tell me you tried to fuck a ghost."

Patrick didn't respond this time; he was too 'focused' on taking care of my hands, but I was sure that he did try. Oh, God, I really don't want to imagine all the things that went through his head when he was still alive. But I was also sure that it was just my mind trying to take my thought from the fact that I was seeing a ghost.

It was late and I was tired. I tried to convince myself that he wasn't real; but when he climbed into my bed and laid next to me, it was like I could feel him. Not physically, just... his soul.

"Will you be here when I wake up?"

Again, Patrick didn't answer. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his unreal head on my chest.

It was extremely cold in my room, but for the first time in forever, I could finally sense the heat.

***

But next morning, he was gone. The sheets that he rested on were moved all around, like he was actually there, but it was clear: my mind was going on the wrong path.

And he didn't come back in the next days, didn't even appear in my dreams like he used to (without the sight of the ghost when I was fully wake and just really tired).

My parents and Sam came home a few days later with big smiles on their faces, but when their eyes locked on mine, they returned to their default blank expression. Pretty embarrassing to have your gay kid mourning over his two bestfriends and one of them being the possible lover. No words spoken, they just got back to the daily routine.

"How was your bar mitzvah?" I asked Sam, sitting down on the counter and messing with his brown, straight hair. Guess our hair reflected our personalities in this family, me being the only alien with curly tangles instead of normal hair.

"Pretty nice, though. Mom and Dad said that we don't have to go to the synagogue and all that crap anymore!" he smiled at me again. My parents were holding any bit of happiness inside when they were around me, but at least Sam was trying to be nice.

"Woah, that's nice, buddy."

My mom looked at me harshly, but I just shrugged. She took a tress away from her face and held out the phone.

"Pete called. He said something about apologizing."

"Tell him to go fuck himself."

"Joseph! Come on, call your boyfriend and let him apologize."

I narrowed my eyes and snatched the phone from her. I dialed the number while leaving the kitchen and going back to my room. Pete answered on the second tone.

"Joe! Oh my God, you finally answer-"

"Only because my mother said you begged her. What do you want?" I cut him off.

"Joe... Joe, I'm sorry. I mean it. Please come to the garage so we could talk."

I sighed. Did I really want to go? No. Did I feel guilty for wanting to say no? Yes. "Be there in 10'." I muttered after a while, throwing the phone on my bed.

Pete was waiting for me with the garage door open and three beach chairs put right in front of it. I dropped my bike on the grass and looked at him, dressed like he didn't even see himself in the mirror. But I wasn't someone with the right to judge. I was still wearing my pajama shirt.

"Hey- What happened to your hands?" he greeted me worringly, pointing at the bandages full of dark red stains.

"Why are there three sunbeds?"

"Oh, I was inviting Adam over before you called me. He'll be here in like twenty minutes or something."

He probably saw the disgusted look on my face because he put his hands on my shoulders immediately. "I can tell him to go back if you don't want him here." But I decided to be mature and try to bear that motherfucker. I shook my head and fake smiled, taking a can of Surge from the already burning concrete. Pretty hot outside for April, but I could already see the gray clouds fading in from the horizon.

"You drinking Surge again?"

"You can tell Adam to shove his crappy Mountain Dew up his ass."

Pete laughed and let himself fall on his blue chair. Why did everyone have these ugly things when we lived in Illinois?

He wanted to start talking, but he stopped when his phone rang in his pocket. "What's up?" Great to be ignored again.

Pete forgot that his volume was too high, because he moved his phone away from his ear when the other person spoke.

"Hey, babe, I'm coming a little earlier. Did you apologize to Trohman?"

Before I could talk, Pete threw the phone away in the grass and forcedly laughed. "Sorry about that! Okay, Joe, I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry and I shouldn't have mocked your relationship and how it end-"

"You got a new boyfriend?"

"Oh my God, Joe! If we broke up that doesn't mean I can't be with anyone else! You know why we had to end it!"

"Yeah, yeah, because you couldn't find a bassist to fill in for your fucked up band."

"Why do you always have to get so upset by anything? I can't even talk to you without getting attacked!"

"Because!" but then my voice faded out. I didn't have a good answer. Pete's face turnt to ice and I felt like crying again. I was weak, I was so weak when I had to face this.

"Why did I ever think this was a god idea?" he muttered under his breath.

We just sat in silence. No one wanted to speak or apologize. Pete was flaring his nostrils repeatedly and I had a huge lump in my throat. I bit my chapped lips to stop the tears from falling on my cheeks while I was getting ready to go back home, but when I heard the distinctive sound of little wheels rolling on the street I sunk back in my chair. Adam or his boyfriend may have been coming. If it was Adam, I was going to leave, but if it was his boyfriend, I felt the need to stay.

And there he was. Adam showing up from behind the trees that were shielding the entrance on the neighborhood's alley with a plastic cup of coffee in his hand. He turned right on Pete's porch and jumped off his board.

I had a strong feeling that he was the guy that called him earlier.

"Hey, ba- Trohman." he said changing his tone from cheery to a cold soldier. I released the air I've been holding in my chest when Adam brushed past Pete and went to get his practicing guitar from the garage. He hated me, he hated me a lot for taking his position as lead guitarist. I couldn't blame him. Adam Bishop was much better than me at playing the guitar.

The sound of wheels hitting the asphalt stopped me again from leaving. I stood frozen in the middle of the action waiting for Pete's boyfriend to come, still hoping that Adam and him weren't the same person.

Then I saw it. My old blue board was strolling down the street, and the person who was standing on it was, of course, Patrick.

"Dude, what are you looking at?" Pete asked me.

"You don't see it? The board?"

"What? Joe... No."

I gulped fastly and ran to the street to get my bike, but I was stopped. Again.

"This loser's seeing ghosts?"

I turned around and faced Adam, who was now sitting two inches away from my nose.

"Adam, leave him alone." I heard Pete say behind him.

"No, no. If he's crazy you can kick him out of the band and our lives and no need to lie anymore about me and you."

"What?" I spit out, punching him in the shoulder.

"Adam, I told you, it's not o-" Pete tried to stop him.

"Yeah, that's right, Joe, Pete's mine. I owned that pretty ass of his way before you two broke up and he still can't get enough of me!"

"Please tell me he's kidding, Pete."

Pete exchanged quick looks between me and Adam with a defeated expression.

"So that's why you actually ripped the ties? You were dating him while you were dating me? You didn't want to be professional with the band, you just didn't want to feel guilty!"

"Joe, I-"

"No, I have every single fucking right to be upset with you! Leave me the fuck alone!"

Adam grabbed my shoulder thightly and pressed his other hand on my chest.

"You're not going anywhere, retard. So, leaving the band?"

"Get your hand off me, Adam."

"So lead guitarist is mine?"

"Back off." I said with the calmest voice I could fake right now.

"SAY IT!"

Adam was suddenly pulled back off me and covered his nose, screaming like a mad man. "Joe! Why the fuck did you do that?" Pete yelled at me, running to Adam with a crumbled tissue fished out of his pocket.

Patrick was standing beside me, rubbing his fist diligently. He looked up at me with a concerned look. "You okay?"

Adam sat back up, pushing Pete away with one hand and holding his nose with the other.

"You can have your lead guitarist title tattooed on your penis; I'm quitting. Goodbye, Pete."

And now I could finally leave. I pedaled away as fast as possible, leaving Pete behind to take care of what Patrick has done.


	8. [7] donnieboy13

As I said before, neither me, Patrick or Andy brung up the whole 'lovers in friends disguise' thing in the next weeks. It was really weird at first; they blew their cover before they even got to know me better, but it faded away at some point.

Andy and Patrick weren't distant, and I was more than happy that I didn't destroy anything between them by finding out. But I still felt like I just built a wall in the middle of the room of our early friendship way before we could even think about the design of it. And it felt really hard to break.

Andy was sitting farther from me in class now and Patrick was nowhere to be found after school. 

I sat down at the table cafeteria and took a bite from my sandwhich. Some freshmen passed my table, a few girls actually stopping and winking at me. They were going to find out some time.

The Halloween school party was on Friday, and I had no partener yet. I was actually planning to find myself a boyfriend who was willing to come to this, or at least some friends, but I wasn't that lucky.

"Am I really gonna do this?"

I stood up and left my half-eaten sandwhich on the table, brushed the mayonnaise from my mouth with my sleeve and adopted the most charming face I could. I wasn't going to go alone to the party, even if I had to invite a girl instead. I walked to the freshmen table and with my hands in my pockets and I waited for the girls to turn their head in my direction.

"Hey, girls!"

A few looked at me confusedly, but the ones who winked at me earlier seemed to be already stoked.

"Well, uh..." I stuttered, rubbing the back of my neck. "I'm Joe Trohman. Junior."

"I thought you wer-" I heard someone behind me. I turned around and sent the guy and deadly glare, before coming back with a smile.

"I was wondering if any of you, girls, would like to- uh- come to the Halloween party? W-with me?"

Four of the girls made really huge eyes and screamed at each other. I laughed uncomfortably, waiting for them to stop being so loud. My ears already hurt a lot from that. I didn't know what to do next, so I took a step back as my cheeks flushed with boiled blood.

"I think I'll come back... later."

As expected, they didn't even notice me walking away. But the entire group of sophomores and juniors were staring at me like I've just been replaced with a four-eyed tarantula. I sat back with my sandwhich and carried on with the rest of the day, having to bear all the weird looks I got from the other kids.

When I was finally getting my stuff from my locker, I noticed a crumbled piece of paper thrown in the corner. I picked it up and unfolded it, seeing two words scribbled on it.

_"Y!M: donnieboy13"_

I frowned and put the paper in my pocket and closing the locker with my shoulder. I haven't used Yahoo! Messenger in so, so long.

***

It was past 9 pm and I still didn't get myself to check who was the "donnieboy13" and why they were trying to talk to me on messenger, but I didn't have anything to do either.

I didn't know any Donnie in this school and I was pretty worried whether or not I should actually get involved with him (or her).

My laptop was sitting on my desk, right by the guitar amplificator. "God, I haven't played that thing in so long." I thought as I picked up the old guitar from its rack. I put my left hand on the frets and sat down, doing my old warm up.

Patrick's song was still stuck in my head since I played it at his house. It was really good, if you actually listened to all the instruments together. Powerful and with some kind of joy. But if you played it alone, without drums or the second guitar, the melody sounded weird and incomplete.

Then the memory of Andy and Patrick kissing hit me again and invaded my head. "You spyed on them; you invaded their privacy - no wonder they aren't talking to you now."

I sighed and let the guitar on my bed. Sitting at the desk, I opened the laptop and waited for Windows to boot. A single icon was placed in the middle of the desktop: Yahoo! Messenger. I clicked it and the login bubble popped up. I typed in my stupid username and waited again:

Logging into skatertroh@yahoo.com...

I slowly clicked onto the status bubble that popped up after, changing it to "I'm available" and looked through my old friend list: thestraightrohman and halloweentz. And apparently they were both online, but I chose not to start any conversation with them. Especially because Pete sent me two recent new texts, asking if I'd like to come over.

"Is it possible to change my username?" I screamed internally while opening Mozilla, but it was apparently impossible. "Stop it, you asshole. You are the Trohman, not Sam. Talk normally to that Donnie."

I clicked the "add friends" button and typed in "donnieboy13". I was inexplicably tensed when I saw that they were online, but I entered the chat room immediately.

skatertroh: who is this?

donnieboy13 entered the chat.

donnieboy13: oh good god you finally texted me

skatertroh: dude who are you

donnieboy13: donnie, the greatest turtle of them all

skatertroh: what

donnieboy13: it's patrick, silly. you know my favorite ninja turtle is donnie.

skatertroh: i actually don't

skatertroh: listen patrick i'm sorry for spying on you two and invading your privacy.

donnieboy13: please don't apologize. i'm the one who acted like a dickhead.

skatertroh: what do you mean? you barely even talked to me. and don't worry, i'm really okay as long as you are.

skatertroh: how's andy?

donnieboy13 is typing...

donnieboy13 is online

I waited a lot and I started yawning when Patrick finally wrote back. I would lie if I said that I didn't start getting worried after a few minutes without any answer.

donnieboy13: did you hear anything from what we talked before you saw me kissing him

skatertroh: patrick, don't worry. please, i'm completely okay with you two being together.

donnieboy13: you heard or not?

skatertroh: yea a lot of it

donnieboy13: he's seeing his dad more often and can barely sleep

donnieboy13: i don't know what to do, joe

skatertroh: where does he sleep? maybe he needs someone to be with him.

donnieboy13: on a mattress in my room but i let him sleep with me

skatertroh: and it doesn't help him?

donnieboy13: a little but he still has a lot of nightmares and he is sweating and crying and shivering and i really don't know what to do

donnieboy13: i have a really bad feeling that my mom will find out soon about us sleeping together

donnieboy13: she doesn't know that her useless son that only dreams about useless music is also a queer

donnieboy13 is typing...

donnieboy13 is away

Sometimes I hated my mind for overreacting. This was one of those times. I looked at the clock desperately. It was still pretty early, so I ran down the stairs and searched for the phone book. The darkest thoughts invaded my head again, as I was sure that Patrick was either crying or trying to be quiet so Andy would sleep peacefully.

But when I came back into my room with Patrick's number scribbled on my hand, I saw a new message on the screen.

donnieboy13: what's up with you going at the halloween party with a girl?

I didn't know him well, but it was still strange that he would go from anxiety and stress mode to bitchy that easily. "Joe, calm the fuck down". Maybe it was just his way to cope with problems. Avoiding them as much as possible.

skatertroh: i don't really know

skatertroh: i just didn't want to go alone

donnieboy13: would you like to go with me and andy?

donnieboy13: i mean, not if you're already going with the girl

donnieboy13: we can't go alone, people would think we're together

skatertroh: yeah sure why not

donnieboy13: do you still go for trick or treat?

skatertroh: yea i take sam to houses since he is too 'young' to do it by himself

donnieboy13: me and andy are also going tomorrow

skatertroh: i don't have a costume

donnieboy13: don't worry i have a cool costume of my dad's in my basement

donnieboy13: it's pretty big it will be okay for you

skatertroh: okay then

donnieboy13: see you tomorrow

donnieboy13 is offline


	9. [8] Vampire Costumes Will Never Hurt You

"Can I please go with the girls now?" I asked when I looked at the horrible bear costume.

Patrick nudged Andy in the back. "Remember when I carried you on my back last Halloween?"

Andy smiled and grabbed Patrick's shoulders laughing. I stood there, hoping that it was genuine. I didn't want them to act like they aren't happy just because I was Joe.

"And when we tried to steal those honey treats from the kids and one of them took me down and just said with a plain, evil voice: 'Honey's for bees, silly bear.'"

"I'm still not over the fact that you got the realistic costume and I got the teddy one."

"So I guess you were two bear brothers?" I asked them.

"We called it 'Folie à Deux'. It's french, for the madness of two. Mom said our costume had a really crazy feel," Patrick answered, putting the bear sized hat on my head.

"Can't I just have your dad's costume like you said? This one's too small, Patrick."

"Well, good luck appearing as a pale vampire that will sweat out all the paint after two minutes, but as you wish, sir."

Patrick left the room to get the costume. Andy was sitting next to me quietly, with his hands on his knees and a lost expression.

"Why did you out yourself?" he suddenly asked me.

"What?"

"Why did you reveal that you weren't heterosexual?"

"I... it wasn't my choice. I was caught making out with a guy last summer."

"Who?"

I scratched the back of my neck and didn't look at him.

"It was, um, my boyfriend."

"You have a boyfriend?" Andy was surprised. That hurt a little.

"More like had. We're not broken up; the whole thing's just gotten kinda cold."

"That sucks. You tried to talk to him about it?"

"He's a bit... complicated. Remember that guy we passed with the cart the night before you and Patrick kissed?"

"Pete?"

"Yeah."

"Dude, you're with Wentz? Pete is a legend in the hardcore scene, at least here in Chicago. I had no idea he was gay!"

"Well he is."

Andy pushed his lip forward and lifted his head a little.

"Please don't tell anyone," he whispered after a few moments.

"About what?"

"Andtrick."

"Never."

And I wasn't going to. It was their privacy, and I know how it feels like to be forced to come out as homosexual. Glenbrook was full of phobes and jerks; coming out was like a death sentence to your relationships in that cursed campus.

Soon enough, Patrick came with the old vampire costume, dusty and a little ripped at the end of the material, and a little pouch. He opened it and got out a makeup brush.

"Is that your mom's?"

"Mhm. She taught me a few about makeup, in case I'll ever need it."

"Why would a guy need to know how to put on makeup?"

"Meh. One more skill doesn't hurt," he shrugged.

"Are you really going to put makeup on me?"

"What's the point of Halloween without the spooky?"

"Halloween was yesterday, Patrick."

"And this is the second day of Halloween. Stop whining, you gotta look like a vampire."

***

As fancy as my costume needed to be, we didn't have anyone to take us to the school by car, so we had to go to the dance with our own stuff. The small raindrops that were falling that evening completely destroyed my vampire makeup, and Patrick almost put his foot in front of my board just to stop me and correct my face.

Andy and Patrick were wearing two simple tuxedos. I was angry that Patrick made me dress up like a total idiot for a children's holiday, but I also had some jeans and a t-shirt in my backpack in case I needed them (and it seemed that I really needed them at some point because my skin was really itchy from the costume).

Patrick secured his and Andy's bikes to a pole and put my board between the chains. Nobody was going to steal that almost broken board, though.

"Ya ready, boys?" Andy jokingly asked as he leaned over the closed front doors of the gym. He had a crooked smile, but I swear to God, there was a tint of fear behind those blue eyes. Patrick seemed to have also noticed it, as he lowered his glance and stared for a bit at his feet.

The last few seconds of a song that sounded like "All The Small Things" by Blink 182 and thanked God that it was over. I hated that song with my entire soul, probably because Sam always blasted it in the living room whenever he got the chance. I hoped that Green Day would somehow make their way into the party playlist. They were not as bad as I thought they would be at the start and I slowly fell in love with Dookie, so "Basket Case" would've been a prefered pick for this lame party.

Instead, that one weird song, probably the junior year's favorite, "The Real Slim Shady" by Eminem came on and the whole pop punk atmosphere was gone. I could hear all of the guys turning into the street boys and acting all badass while actually looking like dumbasses. Whenever this song came on it was like something switched inside of them and turned every boy - except me and a few normal people - into monkeys.

"Why did I even accept going with you guys?"

"Because," Andy started, "these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Patrick looked up at Andy for a second. The ginger was grinning, proud of his impressive use of quotes from Star Trek.

"Nerd," Patrick said, then he turned at me and tilted his head to the dance floor. He straightened out and smiled a little. "Come on, the party hasn't even started!"

The DJ was standing on the scene with his headset on, his table placed in front of an old set of drums. They had a band tonight, apparently. Two "A"s were written with dark red paint on the kick drum. I recognized the logo, though I couldn't corelate it to any band I knew.

I looked around for the food that usually was placed at parties. A few girls were surrounding the table, drinking punch, laughing and taking pictures together.

Lowering my head, I hastened to the table and grabbed a red cup. I was trying not to get noticed by the freshmen.

"Nice costume!"

A girl was bouncing her shoulders to the last beats of "The Real Slim Shady" next to me. I mumbled a reply, but before I could back away, she shoved her face under mine and smirked.

"So y'don't really like talking, huh?"

"Look, Eminem doesn't have to cuss to tell you to go away, so fuck you and fuck him!" I snapped at her, probably a bit too harsh because she instantly went mute.

The song changed to "Scar Tissue" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, and I felt the corners of my mouth bend upwards.

"So who are you?" I asked after a minute, taking a sip from the powdery punch. I grimaced and spit the liquid back.

"Come on, Joseph, it's not that bad."

"You know me?"

"I didn't make it and yeah, my boyfriend told me about you. I'm Malia."

"Who's your boyfriend?"

"Chris Gutierrez. The bass player in your boyfriend's band, if you didn't know already. They invited me here to see them play. Also," she said, sticking her chin outwards and biting her lip, "TJ is still not coming back."

"Son of a bitch. Still on that Transistor Revolt thing?"

"Yeah. Also why are those freshmen staring at you and smiling?"

I turned around and saw three girls gasping when our eyes met. My cheeks burned up, so I pat Malia on the shoulder quickly and backed away. I was stepping backwards, snaking through the few couples that were trying to dance to the relaxing tune of Red Hot Chili Peppers.

My foot abruptly careened over something and I fell on floor, hitting with the top of my head the shinbone of a tall boy with a red painted face and dirty blonde hair.

"Trohman! There you are!"

"Timothy! What are you doing here?"

He held out a hand for me to grab and when he lifted me off the floor I noticed that he looked taller than the last time I saw. Timothy had a few new freckles on his nose and his hair was hiding his left eye now.

"Well, Pete wanted to surprise you and he arranged a show for us at your ball. We were surprised that the principal accepted us. I guess the satanic theme works with Halloween."

"W-where is he?" I asked with the most down-to-earth voice. Me and Pete haven't had a normal conversation for weeks, I had no idea how to react to this.

"Still at New Trier with Jay. He has to make an announcement or something for the soccer team and TJ is driving them here. Is Andy here? I remember that now he's in school here, right?"

"Uh, yeah, he's with my friend Patrick."

"Talking about me?" I caught Patrick coming from behind me with a fake moustache under his nose and a dumb smile. He put an arm around my shoulders and faked a menacing look. "Patrick Stump." he said after a moment with a snicker.

"Oh, you're that dude that auditioned with Andy for the drummer position in Arma Angelus, right?"

Patrick pouted while nodding rather uncomfortably. "Yeah, what's with it?"

"Nothing. But you were damn awesome from what Adam and Pete said."

"I'm sure Andy's better than me, though. I'm no good at music."

"Don't say that, dude, I liked your rhythm and pace a lot, you just gotta work on that double kick drumming a little more. There are always other bands."

I clenched my fists behind my back. Kind of a dick move, if you ask me. I knew Timothy quite well; that was his polite way of saying "I'm better than you, fucker". I could tell from Patrick's little pout that he got the same message.

"Well, I'm gonna get ready for the show. See ya after that, guys."

With that, Timothy left me with Patrick, who had his arm wrapped around my waist. He immediately withdrawn it with a blush. "I'm sorry."

I waited by the front door for Pete and Jay to come and get this over with. My skin was itchy as hell and the vampire makeup was already dripping down my face from the excesive sweat, so I wiped it off with my sleeve. Only then I realized that I couldn't do that, because it wasn't my costume. I sat up and ran to the bathroom to clean the sleeve, but when I put my hand under the water I felt my hands sting like hell.

"Fuck!" I let out a squeal as I brushed my hands on my pants, wetting them all above my knees.

I had several deep scratches under the sleeves of the costume and my skin was so red in spots that it looked like a tomato. That damn costume was made with some kind of allergenic material and I brushed my skin against it with sweat for two hours.

"Backpack, backpack... where the fuck is the backpack?"

I rushed to the door and tried to grab the doorknob, but my hands felt like they were torn apart to the bones as I touched the cold metal. The door couldn't be pushed, and my goddamn phone was out in the backpack.

"Patrick! Andy!... Timothy! Malia! Anyone?"

I clenched my fist and whined. "Come on. Just a little pain, Joe. It's okay, it's not that bad." I told myself. I grabbed the doorknob again and twisted it, my face screwing up in pain. The door opened and I dragged myself out, right behind Andy Hurley.

"Joe?" he asked with a surprised voice. "Holy fuck, what happened to your hands?"

"Get me to the infirmary first." I mumbled, trying not to look at all the thin light red liquid slowly flowing from my hands. Was it normal to lose so much blood from a few scratches? I tried to put my elbows on the floor, but my skin seemed to be scratched all over my body. "I- I can't get up.

Andy bent over and took my feet in his hands. The way he gripped my ankles was right on one of the unrevealed scratches, and as he stuck his fingers in the wound, I felt like a dementor just sucked a part of my soul. "Dude, put your hand where it doesn't hurt, I'll grab you from there."

"Yeah, well, just grab my dick and get me to the someone who has bandages because that's the only spot covered by something else than this costume!"

He sighed and touched my legs carefully, dragging me away from the bathroom. Patrick joined by getting me up from the shoulders, after he saw Andy 'casually' carring me to the other side of the campus.

"Why didn't you tell me you were allerigic?" Patrick asked me with his teeth clenched, a shade of guilt passing by his eyes.

"How was I supposed to kn- MOTHERFUCKER!" I yelled at him when he almost dropped me on the hall.

"Joe, it doesn't help you if you whine about it!"

"How can I stop whining, Patrick? You have no idea how much this hurts! This is your fault!"

And with that, Patrick slammed me on the white tiles. "FUCK!" I yelled again, this time feeling not only my skin, but my bones too, like they were crushed. What even was that damn material?

Andy opened the infirmary door with his back and dragged me like a sleigh until I ended up, face down and legs thrown around, in front of a worried woman.

Twenty minutes later I was back in my normal clothes, full of bandages on my arms and left leg, the other one currently being treated with a bottle of alcohol and a bunch of other bandages. Patrick and Andy were waiting outside and I could see that he was beyond angry. I had no idea what I said to make him so upset, but I must've hit a soft spot.

"Tell whoever gave you this costume to throw it away; the material is highly allergenic and is a thousand times worse than sandpaper." the woman said before helping get off the table and opening the door. Intense screaming invaded the small, sound proofed room; the woman quickly covering her ears. Pete was already singing (or making a call to the unholy spirits, it was kinda the same thing with Pete) and I wasn't there.

"You can do whatever you want now, just wait a day or two until you take the bandages off." she said before isolating herself in her room again.

"Come on," Patrick pushed me in the back. "Satan is calling you."

The noise was even more unbearable from inside, not only Pete's screams reverberating from the speakers, but the aggressive drums and guitar riffs were passing like cold shivers on your spine. It was weird enough to think that the principal would ever let a band like this step in his highschool, but seeing it live was even weirder.

It was late already, about 10 pm, and the guys were probably reaching the end of the set. Timothy seemed to be tired from his excessive beating of those poor drums, and the auburn haired guy who was playing bass - I assumed it was Chris - looked like he just took a shower in sweat. I could never imagine how hard playing in this band was, but seeing them play like their lives depended on it made me believe that it was damn hard.

TJ McIlrath was standing a few meters away from their scene, with his arms crossed and a patient expression. He watched the maniacs do their job while his fingers were playing with his Nokia phone. Tim didn't look like he actually payed attention or cared; his entire world was now revolving around his 'better' band. I had no idea why I was always so negative when it came to him; I guess the slight hate Pete held for TJ somehow got to me too.

Pete's veins were showing up on his neck, literally screaming the life out of his lungs before the band ended their set and he jumped down on the floor. He dropped his mic on the ground - fortunately it was turned off - and walked to me with a grin.

"I'd love to see all those bandages off of you tonight." he said with a disgusting voice right in my ear. Pete left me in the middle of the crowd, everybody staring at me awkwardly.

"Well, uh," the DJ said after a few moments of silence while the band was getting their stuff and leaving. "We only have two songs left for tonight. Let's make them the best!"

The kids cheered as the DJ took control of the party again and started playing a song I've never heard. I was finally able to back away and punch myself for not reacting to what Pete said.

"Dude, what was that about?" Patrick asked me as he sat next to me in the corner. He reached out and put his finger on my cheek, wiping away a tear I didn't realize that it was there.

"Just me being the stupidest person ever. By the way, I'm never wearing anything from your wardrobe again."

"Why did he say that?"

"I have no idea. Probably because he wants to embarrass me. He thinks it's funny, for some reason. I mean... it was, but it's not funny anymore!" I said a little too loudly.

"No, it's not."

"I have no idea why I stick with him, you know? He is the reason all this shit went down. And somehow I still love him."

Patrick didn't say a thing, so I continued. "It's painful, but I just can't get myself to end this."

"Pain is relative." he whispered.

"What?"

"Pain affects us in different ways. For you, a dominant boyfriend. For me, a scared as hell boyfriend."

"Is that why you got mad earlier?"

Patrick sighed. "Yeah, probably. It's stupid to get upset, Joe. I'm sorry I hurt you like that."

"You don't have to apologize."

"Let's... let's just have some fun, okay? I'm already sick of this evening, but I don't want it to remain as 'that halloween party when my best friend got his skin torn off and sexually assaulted by his boyfriend and my own boyfriend is having an existential crisis'."

I snorted. "Best friend?"

"Yeah, man. You and Andy are the closest people to me."

Before I could say anything more, a familiar guitar line distracted me and Patrick. Nirvana.

"Oh, man, this is my song!" Patrick claimed as he ran back to the dancefloor. People were all screaming the lyrics to the well-known song.

"Hello, hello, hello, how low, hello, hello, hello, how low..."

Patrick was playing air guitar and Andy was headbanging through the entire song, his high-pitched voice being heard over all the other screams. Andy swung his arm dragged me to dance with them, a cute little smirk on his face.

"Come on, you idiot, dance like it's the end of the world. You don't have to know how to do it. As funky as you can, it's fine."

And I did.

And it was as relieving as I never thought it would be.

Looking back to this moment, the old Joe will probably never understand that this was one of the moments that he should've enjoyed while he still could.


	10. [9] Ghost in the Dunge- sorry, I Meant Ohio

"So how was it?"

"How was what?"

"Trying to get laid with a ghost while you were still alive."

Patrick sat on his elbow and snorted. "It wasn't good. And I don't recommend it in any ways, so don't even think about it."

I turned my head away and looked out the window. The ride to Ohio was long and boring, and the only thing I could do was to pull out my guitar and plug my headset into the amplificator (but I had no space to do that) or to re-read the Lord of the Rings. Tree Boy wasn't real; he couldn't be, but he was more entertaining than Frodo.

"I've never been to Ohio," Patrick sighed after a while.

"Oh, you're gonna see a lot now, even if you're dead."

Since Patrick was likely to be a hallucination, I hoped that I wasn't actually talking to anyone and didn't look like a total psychopath to other people.

"Next stop: Cleveland, Ohio," the robotic voice of the train assistant was heard through the speakers.

I zipped up my bag and ate the last bits of chips before getting ready to drop there. My aunt invited me to Cleveland to see my cousin, Micah, perform with his marching band (even if he deliberately stated that he didn't want to see his "gay, idiotic, sad and self-pitiful" younger cousin while he was going to play one of the most important shows in his life) and said that she'll pick me up from the train station. I haven't visited my relatives in South Russell since we moved to Chicago in 8th grade, and now that I was stepping back in Ohio I felt the guilt building up in my body. I had a feeling that this wasn't going to end well, and when it came to relatives, then I was 99% right.

My guitar jumped up and down in its case as I sprinted to the exit, right where my aunt's car was parked.

"Woah, mate! You know I was never good at cardio!" Patrick breathed next to my ear, making the hairs on my arms sit up.

"Please shut up while we're in the car. I don't want her thinking I'm even crazier than she knows from Mom."

Patrick nodded as his colour gradually faded out. Since the 'event' at Pete's garage, I have learned quite a few things about my imaginary pal; such as my ability to mute him if I was calm enough.

It was my mind fucking me over, after all. I still had no idea how Patrick managed to actually hit Adam, but I guess I didn't have to find out any time soon. I wasn't going to see them as frequently anymore and it was like a big weight was lifted off my shoulders.

"Hey, honey!" my aunt greeted me after placing a humid kiss on my cheek. "I'm so glad that you could come!"

I forced a small smile while I was trying to fit my luggage into the trunk. "Well, it's Friday night, I've got nothing to do at home... why not?"

"Oh, I missed you so much, Joey!"

"I missed you too, Remy."

Aunt Remy started the engine with a weird smile, adjusting the mirror and then applying some fresh lipstick.

"Hmm... nice name, Remy."

I turned around in my seat, Patrick was smirking back at me. I gave him a menacing look and he just grinned. Sometimes I preffered depressed and quiet Patrick over sassy and ADHD-fueled Patrick.

"You've grown so much, dearie!" she stated, focusing on the dark roads of Interstate 77. "And when did you get so much hair?"

"I thought letting it be for a while wouldn't harm anyone."

"Soon you'll look like all those Jesus guys on the streets."

"I don't see a problem in that."

Remy laughed it off for an extended period, until it got quite uncomfortable, then remained silent. It was a miracle for her to shut up, and, honestly, this was the first time I didn't want her to do it.

"Tomorrow's a big day, you know." Remy stated after a while, turning the steering wheel onto I-480.

"Why is that?"

I didn't even know what date it was anymore. I know that we were in late April, but the exact day was unknown to me. Sometimes I even forgot that it's not night time and that I actually have to live 'life', so forgetting the date wasn't that big of a deal.

"We're going to Hall of Fame before Micah's show, remember? I told you that on the phone... Well, no wonder you didn't catch it, there was someone in the back talking about some kind of Zelda."

My eyes widened when I realised that the one who was yelling about Zelda up and down was my ghost friend. "How did she hear him? Did she see ghosts? I wasn't actually cra-"

But my thoughts got interrupted when Patrick jumped in front of my seat. "DID SOMEONE MENTION ZELDA?"

That's when my aunt looked like she was gonna lose it. Her scream was way beyond a frequency that should be heard by humans, and I was glad that that didn't lead her to crashing on the side of the highway. Instead, she tightened her grip on the steering wheel and tried to adjust her breathing before pulling over.

"What the fuck was that?!" she breathed out after a moment of total silence. "Did you scream?"

"Remy, my voice doesn't even sound like that!"

She glared at me with her lips pressed so tensely that they looked like a white line of old skin. "I should've listened to your mom this time. I had no idea, no damn idea, that you changed so much. Listen to me, boy. We give you a chance, but if you cause any trouble, this might be the last time you set foot in South Russel."

Before I could say anything, Remy repositioned the car on the highway and continued driving. A red strike of guilt passed Patrick's face.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he moved in the backseat.

Remy frowned at Patrick's comment. She could hear him vividly. But how? Adam and Pete didn't hear nor see him, even though Patrick made physical contact with them.

The drive didn't last that much anyway, so I was woken up from my existential crysis when the car's door was swung open and my grandma put her arms around my neck, squeezing me into a really tight hug.

"Oh, Joseph, how are you? Grandma missed you so much."

"I- I can't- breathe," I gasped out. Grandma pulled away from the hug and her wrinkly cheeks dimpled in her own lovely-old-woman way.

"When was the last time you went to the synagogue?" she asked me, her smile turning into a serious, questioning face.

My grandma was a religious person. She didn't agree seeing her family not going to the synagogue every Saturday morning, therefore being yet another reason I preferred staying in Chicago with my parents and brother only, rather than South Russel with the rest of my family. "Grandma, I..."

She gave me a dismayed look. "We're going to the synagogue tomorrow, Joseph."

"But, I-"

"Come on in! Micah is waiting for you."

When I finally stepped out of the car, I realised how unchanged everything was. It was the same neat porch, the same old hammock hanging on the two worn out poles on the terrace.

I didn't realise how late it actually was until my grandma told me that almost everyone was asleep. Though, two people were sitting on the couch placed right at the entrace into the living room, watching the Cubs fail again.

"That fucking goat!" a boy swore with a shrill voice from the couch.

"Watch your mouth, Micah. And they still have chances to win, just hold on a little." The man with a much more pleasant voice took a sip from a bottle of Carling. I closed my eyes and tried to block Patrick out; Carling beer was one of his biggest vices.

Grandma cleared her voice and the two guys turned around. A middle-aged man with tiffany blue eyes and frosted hair - my uncle, Wyatt, and an adolescent with a face full of acne and auburn hair, a weird anomaly in our family of dark haired people, - my older and more annoying cousin, Micah.

Micah shut his mouth and narrowed his eyes, studying every inch of my body with precision. His eyes were exactly as his father's and mine, that being one thing I regret getting from my family. "Joe," he nagged, puffing up a strand of his tousled ginger hair. "You got tired of crying at home, alone?"

"You got tired of basic hygene, Micah?" I quipped, coming to highfive uncle Wyatt. At least he was a person I could talk to without being mocked.

Uncle Wyatt is, or was, a generally stressed person, but since Micah got into college, all he does all day is write his action novels that might never get published and marathon-watch Friends or the entire Doctor Who series for God-knows-which time. Even he agreed once that Micah was a son of a bitch (even if that meant he just called Remy a bitch).

"Don't listen to him. I know it hurts when you lose someone you care for," Wyatt conforted me, and I genuinely smiled for the first time since I got to Ohio. "So... you still playing the guitar?"

"Yeah," I said as he squeezed my shoulders between his long arms. "I recently just quit Arma Angelus."

"It's never too late to make yourself a band, boy. I'm sure they were dicks for making you leave."

"I guess you can say that they were sharing dicks."

Wyatt and Remy showed me the room I was going to sleep in, my old room that was now redecorated into one for twins or something. Suddenly I was wondering if anyone in my family was now pregnant and I had no idea about it.

They closed the door behind me and let me put my stuff in the drawers. Wyatt said I can come down to eat if I wanted to, but it was too late already.

I undressed and sneaked into my old bed and closed my eyes. It was really cold in this room, even though we were in the middle of spring. My head sunk into the pillow until I could feel the hard mattress under my temples and I shifted in my sheets. I forgot how uncomfortable this bed was.

"I never knew your old room was so small. How could you even live in here?"

Puffing out some air, I opened my eyes and saw Patrick studying the room, his hollow body full of colour again. I sighed and supported my cheek on my palm. "I was thirteen. I didn't need much of a room," I whispered.

"Why are you talking like this?" Patrick ironically whispered to my ear.

"You know why. Can I sleep now?"

"No. It's pretty clear that you forgot about my birthday."

"What? I didn't for-" I muttered sitting up, my face being so close to his that I could feel the imaginary bump of our noses.

Patrick frowned. "It's midnight. It's April 27th. It's my motherfucking 18th birthday and you didn't get me a gift."

"You're dead."

"Get down on your knees. You're giving me it now," he sarcastically pointed at his unreal pants, getting ready to drop them on the floor.

"I'm pretty sure your schlong isn't lingible," I retorted.

He looked straight into my eyes, pulling his pants up with his jaw slightly dropped. "Well, thanks for complimenting my schlong, mister-"

"Hey, butt hugger, whose kielbasa are you soothing now, eh?"

The door opened and a cocky, smirking ginger stepped into my room. "Why aren't you asleep? You searchin' for your porn tapes or what? Talking to your schlonged dead guy or..."

"I don't know what Mom told you all about me, but it's clearly none of your business."

"What you don't understand, Joe... is that it clearly is my business. Y'know..." Micah began, closing the door behind him and running his hand across the door's frame. "It's weird how you don't even swear anymore, after that whole death and stuff."

"I don't like to swear."

"How about I point you to the door, right there," Patrick blurted out. "Yeah, yeah, right there, you homophobic asshole."

My face was quickly drained of all its colour when Micah raised his eyebrows and fixed his gaze upon mine. "That's wasn't you, that's not your voice." He got up quickly and opened the wardrobe, searched under the bed and took away the curtains. "Where's the guy?"

Patrick turned at me and shrugged, so I went with it. "Maybe it's just your imagination telling you to stop being an idiot."

Micah scoffed and opened the door again. "Whatever," he muttered before slamming the door shut.


	11. [10] Trouble in Paradise?

The entirety of November that year passed in an irritating monotony. My friendship with Andy and Patrick was going much better than I thought it would, but it was still an odd situation. We had a great time during the day, but we had to deal with the lack of sleep and overall bad mental health during the night.

I think my hopes were set too high for Andy. I believed that he won't be in such a bad mental state due to having another friend around, but of course I was wrong. Nothing changed with Andy during this month. He had night terrors almost every night, ending up crawling in Patrick's bed and sobbing until he would wake up. Patrick had to call me sometimes to help, and eventually I had to leave some clothes there. I crashed at Patrick's four out of seven nights a week because I was too scared to let Andy come to my house again in the cold with only a tank top and pair of boxers on.

Well, yeah, that and the fact that my mom found out in the morning when she burst into my room and saw Andy's body glued to mine. It took a long time to explain that we weren't a couple, but she eventually dropped the idea after Patrick called to ask where the fuck his boyfriend was.

The whole situation somehow felt good, though. Even if I had to deal with Andy's problems too now, at least I had something to spend my time with rather than just trying to listen to Timothy's music. We would ride our bikes (thank God that Sam was stupid enough to give me money for the old one and that I could buy a new and nonembarrassing one) around the neighbourhood. Patrick even brought a small stereo one time, one of those you would see in movies with stereotypical gangs, sitting on a vandal's shoulder as he would draw dicks with grafitti. You probably formed an image of that thing already, but let me tell you- it's wrong. That horrendous thing had six layers of glitter on it and was painted with the brightest neon green shade I've ever seen in my life.

I don't think there's even a word to describe that, so I'll just call it the blinding-retro-emo-edgy-ish shit. Pete would definitely lick that.

And speaking of Pete- he tuned down his Alpha Male behaviour (thank God). He wasn't that awkward and sexual in public. Or at all. Maybe he finally understood that it made everyone feel bad, not just me.

The thought of having to see him again on Christmas made me shiver. I couldn't even decide which version of our relationship was weirder- Pete being dominant and provocative or Pete being quiet and respectful. I didn't ask for any of those versions when I decided to fuck up the rest of all my highschool years.

The day when Patrick brought that stereo on my porch was around the beginning December. I'm not entirely sure, but I know that during that week it started getting really cold and I saw a boy inattentively whistling 'Deck the Halls' on my way to school a few days before that. I almost completely lost track of time since I met Andy and Patrick (not that I was complaining).

Also around that time I was trying to pull off as many hours of sleep as I could to get ready for the finals week, but my body still woke me up much earlier than I had planned. I was barely awake when I opened my laptop and saw that Patrick was online of Yahoo! Messenger. What in the world was he doing up at 7 am on a Saturday?

donnieboy13: got any tapes?

skatertroh: go the fuck to sleep

donnieboy13: you weren't sleeping you opened your laptop

skatertroh: why are you awake

donnieboy13: got places to be

skatertroh: then what are you doing here

donnieboy13: any tapes?

skatertroh: don't think so

skatertroh: why are you asking

donnieboy13: search some, you're gonna need them

donnieboy13: and put something on bcs we're coming in 10 mins

donnieboy13 is offline

I sighed and dressed up before grabbing a tape Timothy left here last time we hung out. Now that I had Andy and Patrick it was like I was a magnet for friends, because I also hung out with Timothy more often and I got to know the other guys in Arma Angelus. What felt surreal was the fact that I was being treated like one of them. Chris, Jay and Daniel were all really cool people; the only one who wasn't as nice to me was Adam, Pete's 'sidekick'. That guy smelled really bad, both figuratively and literally. Never adressed a word to me; he only talked to Pete and TJ and looked like he wanted to kill everyone there. I asked Pete once what was up with him, but he just assured me that Adam is a key piece in the band. But something told me that he wasn't just a guitarist. Pete looked too restless whenever he talked about him.

"It's okay, Joe, you have nothing to worry about. You know that I love you, right?" was the only response I would get from him. I was planning on trying to get him to talk about it, but it would probably never happen, knowing me.

Patrick was already on my porch when I opened the door, keeping his eyes hidden by a Cubs' hat and holding the stereo on his shoulder. It was still partially dark outside, but the glitter still managed to reflect a few rays of sunshine right in my eyes.

"Where the heck did you get that thing?" I asked him, faking a terrified tone, even though I was completely terrified by that thing.

He turned around theatrically, a bright smile printed on his face. Patrick licked his teeth and winked at me over his unnecessary shades. "Ya like it, dawg?"

I shook my head no and he dropped his smile. "Well, you know my dad is a musician, right?" he began, dropping the stereo on the ground gently enough to demolish a house. I learned a bit about his behaviour since I met Patrick- he was excited.

"Yeah, as equally obsessed with Bowie and Costello as you are."

"He wrote a part of a movie score back when I was still a toddler and they had all sorts of weird stuff on set, so one day he came home with this bad boy," he smirked as he turned on the stereo. The static noise after that was so loud that it woke up every single living thing in the neighbourhood. Andy screamed from the other end of the street to "turn the motherfucking pile of glitter off".

"Whoops- I really gotta learn to manage these electronic things," Patrick said with a jumpy voice. "The sound on this is really good, though. Got any tapes?"

"I only have Timothy's copy of Pinkerton."

"Pinkerton... Oh, dear God, don't tell me it's Weezer again," Andy predicted the obvious. They weren't going to escape fate this time.

"My dear brothers, this is the day that you get to listen to heaven."

Patrick's iconic groans were heard in the distance as he pedaled as far as possible from the sound of Tired of Sex. One of the neighbours screamed, "It's too fucking early for Weezer, Trohman!"

They were wrong.

It's never too early for Weezer.

***

"Oh, it's done?" Patrick asked me a few seconds after the tape stopped playing, pulling his bike over on the sidewalk.

"That was rude, you know?"

Patrick shrugged and took the stereo back with a fake disgusted look. "I see that today you have to be a killjoy, so come on. We have to go to work."

"You're working?"

"Both of us are," Andy said. "We have to get our own money too if I want to stay with him. Those were his mother's terms."

Patrick smiled a little before raising his arms above his head. "That and the fact that I buy too much gear. And video games. And Gibsons. Mom refuses to help me with paying for 'so much useless shit', but she has no idea how beautiful those guitars are."

"Fender for the win, loser," I scoffed. Andy pat me on the back and pointed at the crowded boulevard in front of us.

"There," he said. "Reckless Records. I think we can pull of a discount if you want."

"Uh, sure," I mumbled as I reminded myself that it was December already. I had to buy a shitload of gifts this year and oh, boy, wasn't I broke.

Andy got his keys out and opened the doors of the store. When I finally inhaled the smell of old carton and the stingyness of rubbing alcohol, I felt like I was in heaven. Four rows full of new and old records, all sorted out alphabetically, a wall with shelves from the floor to the ceiling, full of CDs and a booth full of band tshirts; it looked like being paid to stay at home.

I rushed to the pile of vinyls labeled with a big B wrote on it. Timothy told me that if I ever wanted to find nice Blink vinyls, then Reckless Records was the place. That little motherfucker slid under my skin with his shitty pop punk music and made me like it so much that now I saved money for every single pressing of Blink-182, Sum 41, Green Day or AFI that I could find.

Patrick and Andy were giggling as they put the employee badges on. "Yo, Joe! We're gonna put this here, if you don't mind," Andy laughed again when he ripped a piece of duct tape and put a small piece of paper on the cash machine: If your name is Joe Trohman then you have 50% off on all of your shitty pop punk records! Sincerely, the staff.

"Don't you think your boss is gonna complain about that?"

"Nah, he's cool with this. He can't stand pop punk. He didn't even want to touch that Americana record."

The name clicked in my mind immediately and I ran to the pile labeled with an O on it. "The Kids Aren't Alright " was my ultimate favorite song ever since I started listening to The Offspring and I heard that Americana was one of those records that you could buy straight on vinyl just because it was incredibly good.

"Is this the picture pressing?" I asked as I got the copy in my hands.

"Yup. Though I don't know why you'd want that," Andy murmured with a grimace under his newly grown stubble.

"Oh, come on, Andy! The Offspring are actually good!"

"I know about that better than you do. I was talking about the picture pressing. Nasty things, I tell you."

"Shhh. Or you won't hear this hit the needle anywhere near you."

Andy rolled his eyes and took one of the crates placed on the counter and began placing them back in their places right before the bell above the front door rang and the first customer stepped into the store.

"How come that I always bump into you, Trohman?" I heard a voice right behind me.

I turned around with a smirk and high-fived my only tall friend. "Oh, hey, Chris!"

Patrick and Andy also greeted him as Malia and Jay entered the store. They waited for the two newcomers to say anything, but instead they just ran to the merchandise booth and yelled at eachother to find tshirts in their sizes.

Chris' eyes fell on the vinyl in my hands and smirked. "Oh, Timothy's gonna put a lot of shit on you for that."

"Tell him to go ahead. He got me into enough shit anyways."

Chris tilted his head back and laughed in his own weird way, looking like he was out of air, shaking his body without any sound. For someone who has never seen that before, it was truly creepy, indeed.

Other customers soon started to fill the small record store and I could tell by Andy's face that he was beyond stressed out. I was ready to step in and help, but Patrick waved at me and nodded slowly- he could handle it. He actually started laughing when Jay and Malia put a shitload of tshirts on the counter.

"You know, I can't fucking believe Christmas is celebrated on Monday this year!" Malia stated as she picked up a copy of Parachutes by Coldplay from the pile of records. "Joe, look here. Do you know what kind of music Pete's sister likes?"

I shrugged. "No idea. He never tells me about stuff like that."

And I wasn't lying. It was actually sad; I knew close to nothing about Pete or his family. It's like everyone else is his boyfriend and I'm the stranger.

Chris nudged me in the shoulder before I could say anything else and pulled me closer. "Dude, what're you-"

"I'll probably get into trouble for this, but I was looking for you. I didn't just come here by accident. Pete is hiding something from you, Joe. He wants to get you into the band. He's planning on kicking off Adam from the lead guitar."

"Why? Adam is a better guitarist than me."

"I have no damn idea, but he wants you in the band. Ever since he and Adam had that fight, he looks like he's desperate to have you with us."

"They got in a fight?"

"Yeah, it was pretty rough. But for the sake of all of our asses, I think you should talk to him. Pete hasn't been himself lately; I wouldn't want that to break the band apart."

I took in a deep breath. I had no idea what to say. "Sure, dude, I'll see what I can do."

"You're the man, Troh. Come on, guys, we have to go."

I watched the three leaving the store with two big bags until the door closed finally closed behind them. My heart jumped in my throat when Patrick gripped my shoulders tightly and turned me around.

"What was that about?" he asked before slapping Andy's arm away from counting the big amount of money that they just got from Jay and Malia.

"Trouble in paradise?"

"Kind of," I said, taking the cash from Andy's hands and counting them. "Three hundred dollars? What the fuck did they buy with this money?"

"Can we help with this?" Patrick asked, taking off his badge and jumping over the counter. "We're done with our shift anyways."

"No, I think I should handle this by myself. He's my boyfriend, after all."

A couple of minutes later I was in Pete's neighbourhood and the front door of Pete's house was wide open when I got there, like he was waiting for someone to just barge in and rob him. My heart was pounding as I got to the living room just to see that it was completely empty, so as the rest of the ground floor.

I almost hit my head on the wall when I heard the familiar voice from upstairs. "Who's that?"

"It's me, Pete!" I shouted back at him. Pete stood in silence for a few moments before finally coming downstairs. He was hiding his hands behind his back and he didn't look like he wanted to move them away. He probably noticed that neither of us were going to start talking, so he went first.

"What are you doing here?" he asked harshly, his eyes locked on mine while closing the front door behind me. Pete must've seen the fearful look on my face, because his suddenly straightened out. "Chris told you."

"Why do you want me in the band?"

"One tour only. Chris can't come this summer; we're gonna need a new bassist."

There was something in his eyes that told me he was lying.

"Then why are you worried about this right now? That tour is in like six months."

Pete didn't answer. Instead, he just backed off and stared through the window. "Dude, what's happening with you?" I said softly, putting my hand on his shoulder. He brushed it off quickly and faked a reassuring look.

"It's nothing. So, can you do it or not?"

"Uh, yeah, I haven't played bass in a while, but I can manage it."

Pete grinned for a second, but then he gripped my shirt tightly and opened the door. "Hey, wha-"

"You should go. Tomorrow, band practice?"

"Wait- wait. One more thing. You said you had to break it off with your last boyfriend when he had to join, right?"

"That's not going to happen. I had some serious issues with that guy; I had to do it."

"Oh, that's great! Well, I- uh, I love y-"

But I couldn't finish the sentence, because Pete shut the door right in my face.

"You can shove your 'I love you's up your ass," I mumbled as I got my backpack and left his neighbourhood.


	12. [11] The Chain

Choking. The boy was struggling for breath on floor. Everything was spinning.

"My son... my son... my son..."

Andy was clawing his ears out, screaming for mercy. But as strangled as he was, no sound came out. Too much pressure and none at all. Too much noise and complete silence.

"Leave me alone!" he cried, cold sweat running on his entire body. He could feel the blood rushing for only a second, and then stopping.

How can something be so disturbing and yet so calm at the same time?

His limbs were suddenly out of power and it was only him and his mind. His worst enemy.

"Please, Dad! Please!"

The dark figure rose from the ground, its lifeless eyes staring right through Andy's soul.

"I'm sorry, Dad!"

"Do not forget me... ever again."

Andy pulled himself away until his back was pressed firmly to the wall and his stomach sucked to the bone, only to not feel the touch of his dad's fingers on his face again.

"Because I will always be here, John," the ghost's voice reverberated through the entire house, shaking one little tear to the point of falling to the ground with a loud echo from Andy's eyes. "My son."

"And because if you do" - the ghost gestured to the bed, where Patrick was sleeping calmly - "you will regret it."

"Anything but him, Dad, please!" he chocked up, more tears falling to the ground.

"SAY IT!" the ghost yelled, throwing everything to the ground, crushing Andy under the pressure of a thousand skies falling on him at the same time.

"NEVER!" he yelled back, a bit of rage filling him up, getting him to the point of exploding. "... never again."

Patrick Stump was shifting through the sheets, undisturbed by anything that was happening right next to him. Because he couldn't understand. Because he was free. And because he didn't know what was really happening: Andy having one of the worst night terrors he has ever seen, or his best friend, his lover, almost choked to death by his dad, tortured by his own troubled mind.

Andy Hurley was trembling beneath the sheets.

Begging for help, screaming into the infinite void.

Eventually, Patrick would wake up and find Andy lying on the floor. He would drag him back to bed and hold him tight, letting Andy calm down and trying to hold back his own tears.

"It's okay..." he said with a voice full of restrained tears. "He's gone... he's gone now."

Patrick tried to comfort Andy, but how could he do that when he was as broken as he was? All Patrick wanted was to put an end to Andy's suffering. To put an end to the chain.

"We'll figure t-this out, Andy... We will!" Patrick exclaimed. But even he didn't believe that, so he wasn't expecting Andy to either.

And as it happened every night, they both knew what the only option was. He would wake up - or maybe just come back to reality, as he never got a full-night's sleep ever since his dad first sneaked into the darkest corners of his mind - every night, covered in sweat and barely breathing. Crying. Torn apart.

But that's just how the chain works. The chained one is breaking down, piece by piece. And then they're gone. Forever.

"Never again, Dad," he whispered on Patrick's chest. "Never again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bit different, being all about Andy. I thought it would be better if I gave an insight over Andy's situation too, since the entire story is from Joe's point of view.
> 
> Anyways this isn't the chapter coming after a glorious month, I have one at 4k that still isn't done and will probably be published when I get the time to write it properly.
> 
> See ya folks.


	13. [12] Widow or Divorcee?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finally posted everthing on ao3 aye  
> i'm still new to the ao3 formatting so i'm gonna add the italics and shit later

Assuming that my mom won't go fucking nuts when I told her that I'm not going to be at home for an entire night during Hanukkah was a fatal mistake, if you asked me. She, herself, could care less about Hanukkah, but the frustration that my stupid grandma and the rest of the family (including the big bag of dicks, also known as my cousin, Micah) were coming over to Illinois for the winter holiday was pushing her over the edge.

"You're not going anywhere, especially to that stupid party."

"Mom, it's not gonna be just us, the whole band is coming, plus Andy and Patrick. I'm not going there to get laid."

"Uhuh, exactly like you did last summer."

"You can trust me that I won't do anything witless now. Can I go pack my things now?"

Mom slowly blinked, looking like she was on the verge of punching me or the newly rebuilt wall that she punched last time she got really angry. If I had to blame someone for my sometimes-out-of-control anger, I would totally blame her.

But her body suddenly relaxed and stared at me dead in the eye. "No. You're not going anywhere," she said calmly as she picked up the laundry basket from the floor. "You're gonna stay in the living room, no music, just you and grandma Maralyn and your dearest friend, Micah, discussing about why you have the reputation of a trash can in your highschool."

"I see that you get pleasure in torturing me."

"Oh, that's the beauty of raising a teenager," she said with a grating voice as she opened the door. The horrible smell of the disgusting, yet still appreciated, keftes Mom made every year on Hannukah invaded my nostrils and almost made me faint. The combination between cinnamon and a gallon of goddamn oil was intoxicating; it was another reason I preferred staying in my room and not celebrating Hanukkah alone.

Grandma Maralyn, also known as Satan herself, uncle Wyatt and Micah were sitting on the couch, while aunt Remy was looking through the pictures set on top of the fireplace.

"Micah, look!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know they still had that picture of you and Joseph!"

As much as I wanted to avoid any interaction with Micah, when I was still little, I had to suffer his presence every day, and that picture was evident proof of that nightmare. I had no idea why my mother even kept that picture, since it was Micah evilly pulling my hair in every direction possible and me screaming and crying. There was nothing cute about it; only pain. The pain in the ass of having Micah as a cousin.

Micah was the most moronic person I knew. He was Pete's age and, if that was even possible, he was a lot more immature than Pete ever was. The only difference between the two was that Micah was also the ugliest ginger I've seen in my entire life. No wonder he had no chance at getting a girlfriend.

"Was this taken back in the time when Joe didn't know what a hair brush was? Oh, wait, he still doesn't know," he mocked.

"My hair is naturally curly, scumbag."

He just shook his head in disagreement and joined Remy in analizing the pictures with an imbecile look on his face. I scoffed and sat on the couch, immediately regretting it.

"Joseph, darling!" my grandma screeched right next to my ear. A shiver ran down my spine when she pressed her wet lips on my cheek, but I managed to hide how uncomfortable I felt about the whole situation. Maralyn was an instant no-no ever since I was born, and you had proof right there, between the pictures placed on the fireplace. The infamous picture of me, only two months old, completely naked, held up in the air by grandma Maralyn like we were in the fucking Lion King. Sound couldn't be captured through pictures, but I'm sure that you could hear my loud cries quite easily when you looked at that one.

"Hey, grandma," I managed to say, still disgusted by the trace of saliva on my cheek. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating, but her kisses were wet and extremely gross.

"I haven't seen you in two years and all you can say is 'hey'?"

"Grandma, we've seen each other in September, on my birthday, remem-"

"Are you implying I've lost my memory?"

"No! No, no-"

Maralyn shook her head in disagreement and leaned closer to uncle Wyatt, "This whole gay thing made him think he is suddenly superior to us, didn't it?"

Wyatt turned his gaze and locked it on mine, his serious expression turning into a warm, understanding one. "Maralyn, I think you need to take your medication."

She protested a bit before she ceded and left the room. Wyatt snickered to himself before moving from his seat closer to me. "Sorry about her," he joked. "Not everyone accepts people that are just themselves."

He scooted to the plate of chocolate cookies brought heroically by my dad and ate one without even biting. "Shouldn't you be somewhere, young man?" he questioned with his mouth full of crumbs.

"My boy- my bestfriend's Christmas party," I stuttered before stuffing my mouth with a cookie. "Mom won't let me go, though."

"I can take you there with my car; Debby won't even notice that you're gone."

"I don't know, Wyatt. I already got in trouble with her for flopping that final. I'll just call them and-"

"Hey, Joe, is this your orgy?" Micah suddenly shouted in my ear before shoving a picture of me, Andy and Patrick right in my face.

It was the only picture I had of them, the one that we took when we got to Lake Michigan, exactly when the sun was completely gone and you could only see those pink-ish last rays of sunshine reflect in the water. Patrick was holding an open bottle of Carling beer and had the widest smile ever, probably because Andy was wearing a flower crown he made on the way to the shore. It was made out of oak leaves and Lily-of-the-Valleys, apparently Patrick's favorite flowers, and I have to admit, Andy looked extremely cute with it.

It was the only picture including me that I didn't hate with my entire existence, the picture I handed to Mom to frame it, but it was also the picture that she carelessly left lying in the crate of 'unimportant' photos.

"Look at this dumbass! What are those, fucking flowers? Joe, you have to tell me that this isn't an actual guy, with his stupid long hair and that crow-"

I turned over to Wyatt. "What did you say about the car?"

***

I wasn't surprised by the insane amount of Christmas lights and fake Santa puppets that were hanging around on the outer walls of Pete's house. Despite that he had enough time to bedizen his poor house like that, Pete didn't even touch the 40 inch wall of snow that was covering his front alley and his yard.

"T-man, where have you been?" Chris yelled immediately after I closed the door behind me. Without warning, he jumped on my back and kicked the present from my hands.

"Stuck home with my family. And be fucking careful; I payed good money for that gift!"

Chris got off of my back and smirked. "Is it for me?"

"How can I still be the secret Santa if anyone knows whose this present is?"

"Well, come on, Weasley and Cider got here like two hours ago."

I had no idea where these nicknames came from (maybe only Weasley, Chris must've heard me jokingly call Andy like that), but I didn't protest. It was good to be surrounded by people that actually wanted to hang out with you. And it seemed like it worked really well with Andy, since Patrick told me many times that his night terrors weren't as frequent as before.

My prediction that at least two of us would get drunk tonight was right when I saw Jay, Daniel and Timothy sitting on Pete's couch, trying to chug as many bottles of Carling cider until they would pass out. Timothy was already completely wasted, laughing uncontrollably at a scene from Home Alone that was playing on AMC.

While I was crossing the room, I heard TJ and Malia having a fight over the wrapping paper and Pete working on something in the kitchen. I was surprised that he didn't take this chance to blast Metallica through the entire house, but I reckoned that his mother must've been sleeping upstairs. If Pete ever was respectful to someone, it was his mom.

I almost got a fir rod stuck in my nose when I got to the tree. Pete's Christmas tree was as unnecessarily big as half of the living room. He has been known to have the bad habit of going overboard when it came to events and whatever other stupid shit he organised.

I placed my gift under the tree and searched the room for Andy and Patrick. They were sitting crosslegged on the floor with Christmas hats on their heads and drinking something from mugs. Andy put his mug on the carpet immediately and sat up to greet me. His little smile could make the sun jealous, especially with the little bit of hot chocolate that got stuck on his lips.

"I've had enough of these stupid cards," Patrick stated when his eyes met mine. "Is everyone here? I think we can do that Secret Santa."

"Hillary isn't here yet, you assholes!" Pete yelled from the kitchen as he brought two big bags of Doritos and a big bowl.

"We can start without her!" Timothy yelled back, "This kickass gift is gonna rot here until she stops fantasising about David Bowie." Patrick's back arched up straight and he robotically turned his head to Timothy, his "Bowie sensors" immediately active. "Did you just say David Bowie?"

"Oh, yeah, Pete's sister loves that guy's music. She probably also hates Coldplay," he laughed, watching Malia almost jump at his neck to strangle him for not telling her to not buy that Coldplay vinyl back at Reckless Records.

"Fucking finally! I can talk to someone about him without being called a faggot," Patrick exclaimed, looking like he was ready to jump on Hillary and sniff her like Tarzan was doing currently on Channel 8. "You're already a faggot, what's the problem?" I said with a smirk, Patrick only responding with a frustrated eye roll and a middle finger.

Meanwhile, Timothy tried to get up from his place on the couch, but failed miserably as he stumbled between his legs. Jay went and picked him up. "Come on, dude, you need to sit down."

Jay brought the presents in the middle of the room. "Y'all sit your asses on the floor, and, I don't know, we'll do it clockwise, I guess," he said dropping a small red box on top of the pile of gifts. My two lackeys immediately moved next to me awkwardly, Patrick chewing on his nails and Andy just slightly jumping between me and Patrick. Pete, Adam, Malia and Chris sat on my right and Jay and Daniel dragged Timothy with them in the circle. TJ didn't know where to sit without getting weird looks, but Patrick took action and pulled him down between him and Jay.

"Dude... your sister, remember?" Malia said, patting Pete on the back right when Timothy tried to reach for his present.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," Pete excused himself, going back into the hall. "Hillary! Stop licking that poster of Bowie and come here!"

"How many times do I have to tell you that Bowie isn't hot?"

Funny enough, since Pete was such a good boyfriend, I've never seen Pete's dearest little sister (kudos for that, sir). So I wasn't surprised when Hillary got out of her room and the first thing that she said was "Oh, man, Bowie is just as unhot as your boyfriend."

"Joe is the unhottest person alive, I know," Pete replied, not caring if I could kill him right there and then. "... but Bowie certainly is hot for this guy," he said after a long pause, pointing at Patrick. He raised his hands in surrender as Hillary gave him an awkward look that basically screamed the words "Are you insane, dude?".

I had to keep my snickers in when Patrick leaned over me to bring Hillary closer to us, just to consume her soul with his Bowie needs, but, unfortunately for him (and fortunately for everybody else on Earth), Hillary sat down between Adam and Malia.

"I'll start," Timothy called out, stretching to the pile of gifts and picking a small box wrapped in blue glossy paper, but Malia put a hand over his chest to stop him. "How about getting sober before trying to destroy his gift, don't you think, Tim?" she said, putting his present back in the pile and picking a bag decorated with a huge amount of pink feathers.

"Whatever."

When Hillary saw that Malia was reaching to her with that hideous bag she looked like she was about to puke. "Dude, you know like, I hate pink, right?" she said, her whole back trembling from trying to hold back her laugh.

"Just fucking open it, sister."

Right after Hillary's fake disgust faded, Timothy tried to get to the gifts again, but Hillary was quicker and took the decision of going counter-clockwise. Apparently nobody was surprised when Timothy opened his gift from her only to find two black overused tshirts and a pair of even older Converse sneakers. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that, I didn't really know what I should buy for you."

But Timothy brushed it off with a lazy smile and pulled one of the tshirts on his head right after. He didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that the tshirt was missing the bottom part almost entirely.

Adam handed Malia her gift without saying a word and she sensed immediately that what he has bought for her was just a prank gift. "If this is a fucking book, I swear to God, Adam-" she began as she took apart the wrapping paper. Malia shot Adam a cold glare while holding up a thick history textbook. Adam looked like he was going to puke from all the laughter he was trying to hold back. "You gotta put your ass down and study this semeter or bye bye high school graduation."

"Wow, thank you so much for caring," she mumbled sarcastically, throwing the book over the couch and on the floor. I felt the urge of getting up and rescuing that poor book, but I figured no one would be thrilled of having me as the book nerd. But seriously though, that book had so much useful information. Why throw it away when you can throw it to me?

Everyone seemed stunned when Daniel opened his gift from Pete and he didn't punch him for getting him a pair of the well-known, cursed Speedos. Even more so, he was happy and actually hugged Pete for getting him "such a great gift". I had no idea that he was on the swimming team of New Trier, but even if I did, I would've never thought he would be able of degrading himself like that. I even promised him that I might come to his next race; wouldn't trade seeing a punk like him in Speedos for anything.

My hands were trembling when I reached out to the pile of gifts, and as clumsy as I was, I almost ripped the wrapping paper by dropping the gift on the floor and bending that poor book's cover. I was a bit nervous, considering that I had to buy a gift for the forever-infamous Adam Bishop. My knowledge about him was below zero, but from what I heard from the others, he has never read any of the Lord of the Rings books, so I felt like it was my duty to bring true happiness in his life. I mean, seriously, how can you not read LOTR?

Well, he couldn't, apparently. Adam didn't take his eyes off me as he was opening the gift, his expression completely blank. I could see that he wasn't exactly gratified from the little twitch in his eyes.

"I'm sure you'll love it, especially Legolas. Great guy, I tell you," I mumbled, pulling myself a bit farther away from him. But I almost fell on Patrick's knee when Andy stood up holding the smallest box that was in the pile with the warmest grin on his face.

"Okay, I know that you asked me not to spend my money on this and buy myself something nice, but..." he began as Patrick stood up too. "I also know how much you wanted to play this, so I couldn't resist."

Patrick looked like he couldn't resist either, because he almost broke apart the cover of the video game Andy bought him. "ZELDA!" he yelled. "Wait... Majora's Mask? How did you get this? They were literally sold out two hours after the release!"

"I have my ways," Andy shrugged his shoulders. Patrick jumped at his neck immediately after, both of the falling on the couch laughing. Everyone else was akwardly laughing with them while Patrick and Andy hugged each other tightly. "You guys are too cute," Malia said with a big grin before punching Chris in the arm. "You're never that cute with me, you asshole."

I didn't even realise that I was the only one who wasn't laughing until I snorted at what Chris was wearing underneath his ugly Christmas sweater (a t-shirt with Malia's usual judging face on it and with "did you just say I'm not cute, punk?" written under it). What felt even worse were the familiar spikes in my stomach occupying a permanent place inside me. And the fact that I found myself accepting the fact that I wanted to be the one getting all the warm hugs and spontaneous kisses. 

"Hey, Chris," Patrick said with a relaxed voice. "You mind getting your own gift? 'Cause I'm a bit busy here."

"You're one lazy motherfucker, you know that, Cider?" Chris puffed as he got his own gift. It was pretty obvious from the start that it was a skateboard, but he still acted like he had no idea what it was until he opened it. "This is amazing, Patrick! It's got these red wheels too? Nice, man, thanks. Just broke my old skateboard in half."

After that, TJ was next and he wasn't really happy about all of the glares that were set upon him. "I know some of y'all probably hate me for leaving the band, but since I was invited to this party by Weezy, y'all can't hate me tonight." Daniel and Jay both huffed at the same time at his remark. "And also because Pete actually supports my dreams and wants me to have my own, personal band and career, unlike y'all," he mocked, giving the gift to Pete.

"Dude, you didn't have to buy me anything!" Pete politely lied before he attacked the wrapping paper like a hungry caveman. Nobody laughed when Pete raised the little piece of paper inside, with the words "Transistor Revolt and Arma Angelus, December 29th, 2000, 9 pm at The Hideout" written on it with some smudged black ink.

Chris, Adam, Jay and Daniel all exchanged a few confused looks. It was obvious that they had absolutely no idea that they were going to play with Transistor Revolt in a few day. I couldn't help but laugh a bit when every single one of them glowered at Pete, knowing that he didn't tell them on purpose. This might be one of the things I both hate and somehow love about Pete.

Jay handed TJ the gift (tickets to an Arma Angelus show) without even looking at him, waiting for Daniel to give him the gift. From what I knew about Jay, he was a big fan of old movies, and he only watched things that were released before the 70s. I had no idea that movies from the late 30s ended up on DVD, but someone actually spent enough time to put one like Reefer Madness on a DVD.

"Dude..." he began, pointing at the cover of the DVD. "Didn't I tell you I have this movie already?"

"I don't know, man, I just saw a bunch of movies on your desk, I didn't take the time to analyze them and shit," Daniel shrugged his shoulders. "You can give it to Pete. Even better if it's a bad film."

"Oh, it is a horrible film. That's why we're seeing it tonight, folks! Gotta love families selling marijuanna together, am I right?"

"Not yet, Jay." Timothy got up again, this time not as disoriented as he before; the alcohol must've been wearing off already. He took the last gift from the pile and gave it to me with a smirk. It was obvious from the start that if Timothy would ever buy me a gift, it would be some pop punk music on a scratched vinyl, but this time I was surprised by the completely clean and sealed CD from Foo Fighters, There is Nothing Left to Lose.

"You should thank those two," he said, pointing at Andy and Patrick on the couch, who gave me shy smiles and a little "you're welcome" under their breath, "for getting me a discount, or I would've never had enough money for those."

I thanked them all for it, but then my heart sank a little when I realised that Andy didn't get his gift yet. You could notice the disappointment in his icy eyes if you took a moment to observe him, but still- he didn't say a word. Jay was ready to put on the DVD, but he was stopped again by Chris, who was holding a little bag behind his back.

"Did you think that we forgot about you, Weasley?" he asked him with a sad smile. Chris probably noticed too that Andy was most-likely used to being left out.

Andy opened the bag and the wide smile that got glued on his face brightened up the situation immediately when he pulled out the black and yellow scarf from it. He turned the scarf around, revealing the little thing written on the inside: " To the first Weasley to ever end up with the Hufflepuffs". Andy wrapped it around his neck and laughed with everyone else, but a dark expression passed Patrick's face when he did so. That thing around his neck made both of us stiffen up after that.

"Well then, you traitor," Patrick grinned after a few moments. "You gotta be one of the most Slytherin Hufflepuffs I've ever seen."

"I'm a pure Hufflepuff and I'm proud about it, prick."

The guys decided they should put Timothy to bed, so they grabbed his limbs and dragged him upstairs silently. When they came back, though, they didn't bother to keep quiet. Chris squealed like a 7-year old girl when he raised the piece of mistletoe in his hand.

"Oh, who would it be..." he said under his breath, shaking the mistletoe above of everyone's heads before purposedly stopping above Andy and Patrick. "Cider and Weasley! What a surprise!"

Andy's cheeks were flustered, but as Patrick leaned closer to him with a warm smile, he gave up and pressed his lips against Patrick's with force. My eye twitched whenever that happened and all I wanted was to pull it out with a fork right there and then.

"Enough of this gay shit, folks, let's watch this movie before Pete's mom kicks us out!" Adam said, sitting up and getting the DVD out of its box.

Andy and Patrick were cuddled on the couch again and the guys were all laying on the floor when Adam put the disc into the DVD slot. "Hey, where are you going?" Patrick asked me, pulling me from my sweater back to the couch.

"I'm just going to get a drink. Don't worry, I'm not leaving."

Patrick nodded. "Can you bring me some orange juice, too? I think Andy fell asleep already and I don't want to wake him up," he said, pointing at the ginger that was breathing evenly with his head rested on Patrick's belly. "Y-yeah, sure, Patrick."

As soon as I closed the kitchen door behind me, I rested my head on the wall and tried to pull myself together. What was I thinking? Did I actually feel bad when Andy and Patrick kissed under the mistletoe?

I opened the fridge and got out the bottle of orange juice. As I was closing the fridge's door, I couldn't help but notice an open bottle of Baileys, just sitting there. My dad had a few of those stacked up in the basement and I've always wanted to try them out, but I've never gotten the guts to actually taste alcohol before.

Who knew that typical teen angst and whatever sexual frustration I felt back then would be the big reason why I decided that it was time to get wasted.

I had no idea if alcohol had the effect of making time pass faster or if I just drank more than two full glasses of that caramel whiskey shit. It did taste sweet, though.

The sweetness faded out quickly when the kitchen door was slid open and Pete stepped in. He flinched as soon as our eyes met, but he didn't take long to snap back into his Christmasy mood.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" he asked me with a small smile.

"Well, I'm not going to see all that straight 30s shit on Christmas. I came here to have fun, right?"

"Same," he said, jumping up on the kitchen counter, smirking at me.

His confidence died out when he noticed the half-empty bottle in my hands. "Did you drink all of that?"

"Oh, yeah, I couldn't help myself," I stated, putting the bottle back on the counter and smiling at Pete.

"You're drunk. Like, really drunk. You need to stay down."

"I don't need to do anything. But I know what you need to do," I said as I stepped closer to him. Teoretically, you could say that I tried to make out with him, but if you actually saw the scene, it looked like I just crashed on him and tried to break his teeth with mine.

I waited for Pete to kiss back, but, to the surprise of drunk Joe, he pulled away and clenched his teeth frustratingly.

"I didn't come here for sex, Joe."

"I guess so. Here," I said with lazy voice. "Have some orange juice."

"I came here to talk to you. Alone."

"Well, that's a first," I mocked, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.

"I don't think this is working anymore," he stuttered, taking a step back like was protecting himself from a nonexistent punch.

"Why?" I asked quickly, putting my hand on his shoulder. Pete brushed it off and looked straight into my eyes before trying to drop the cliché response. "It's not me, it's you."

"You do know that's not how you say it, right?"

"I saw the way you look at that guy, Joe. We both know you want to sleep with him."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Come on. I always knew you had a thing for drummers."

"I don't want to sleep with anyone else but you! I thought you knew that! Where did that even-"

Pete raised his hand to stop me from talking, but instead of making me calm down, it just made my anger stronger. If any of us were to cheat, Pete would be the one who'd do it, and I hated myself for knowing this fact about him and not doing anything, because now it was backfiring at me.

"Think about this. It would be better if we weren't together, with Arma Angelus mixed in. I don't want this," he whispered, looking back at the kitchen door to make sure that it was closed," to get in the way of the band."

"So now the band matters more to you than our relationship? Fuck Arma Angelus, Pete! "

"Arma Angelus is all I have, Joe," he blustered. His gaze turned into a cold glare, getting angry as well. But I wasn't ready to give everything up for his whims. "You have me!" I shouted, not caring if everyone here heard us.

"Just go be with your friends," Pete retorted, gesturing to the kitchen's window, where you could see Andy and Patrick still cuddled up on the couch. My heart jumped when Andy planted a kiss on Patrick's lips, the usual sadness of being the annoying third-wheel filling me up just like a balloon. "Be with him while you still can."

"Who are you even talking about? I'm not into Andy!"

"I didn't say anything about Andy."

What happened in that split second was something I never thought that was possible: I was caught off-guard. For that damned split-second, I actually considered his stupid remark as anything but completely wrong. Even if with every second that passed, I was doubting how wrong that statement really was.

"Then say it. Stop fucking around and say who you're talking about," I growled after that moment ended, pushing him against a wall. I wanted to prove that I was loyal, I really did, but anything that went through my head would only seem like a desperate way to prove him the truth of me being in love with someone else. Pete just stared at me, completely calm and inexpressive, waiting for me to let him go.

"Please, don't push this, Joe. You'll thank me later, believe me."

"I will never thank you," I countered, my lips only an inch away from his. "But keep this in mind, Pete- if you ever come near me I will break you and the band."

Pete nodded with a sad smile as I let go of his ugly Christmas sweater. "Okay... okay, I get it. You're still pissed about what happened last summer."

"It's not about that!" I whispered angrily, trying hard not to make too much noise. I didn't want any of my friends getting stuck in this shithole.

"Joe, come on, you need to go home and rest," Pete stopped me by putting his hands on my shoulders. "You're wasted and you're not thinking clear-"

"Oh, I am thinking goddamn clearly," I cut him off, getting as far away from him as possible. "And if you think that I'm okay with anything that you've done ever since you slithered into my damn life, you're wrong."

I opened the kitchen's door and I was relieved that nobody said anything when we both stepped back into the living room. Everyone was too concentrated on that stupid movie.

"Oh, hey, thanks!" Patrick whispered when I handed him the glass of orange juice. "What took you so long? You okay?"

"Yeah, I..." I slurred out, gesturing to the kitchen. "I got a little dizzy back there. I'm fine now."

"You don't seem fine. Here," - he slapped the empty space left on the couch - "sit and watch the damn movie."

"Is this movie worth it or should I go home?" I asked, a rapid shiver shooting through my body when Patrick put his arm around my shoulders and dragged me closer to him and Andy, who was still asleep. "Maybe the night terrors finally stopped..." I thought to myself , seeing that Andy wasn't trembling nor crying in his sleep.

Patrick dragged the blanket that was on Andy and him to me with a smile. The only thing that made me feel comfortable in that moment was the sweet warmth of that stupid alcohol. And even if I was almost falling asleep with my head on Patrick's shoulder, probably drooling already, I could get one glimpse of how Adam was holding Pete's hand as they went to the bathroom together. It was like I was watching a perfect copy of what happened only six months ago, only this time the person that was pushed into a cursed bathroom was Pete, not me.

And even though I could say something, because I surely could, I stayed put, like I always do. 

That's what nice guys do. They stay put and accept what's happening. I'm the nice guy, right?

"Keep feeding yourself lies more, Joe. That's the only thing you can do right, remember?"


End file.
